It was a familiar story for Great Britain on Thursday evening as they came agonisingly close, but ultimately short, falling 79-78 to Spain at the Olympic Basketball Arena.
The loss puts them in a do or die situation, with their next two games against Australia and China being must-wins to stand any chance of advancing out the group.
The game doesn’t come without controversy either, with GB trailing by 1 and the seconds ticking off, Dan Clark appeared to foul Jose Calderon but no call was given as he was allowed to dribble out the clock.
Luol Deng finished with 26 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists, and Joel Freeland was impressive with 25 points and 7 rebounds.
After the game, head coach Chris Finch was disappointed with the loss, but emphasised the importance of the team being in close game situations to gain the experience needed to get over the hump:
“Close games is what we have to be in. We’re not gonna out-talent anyone, we’re not gonna win by double digits, we’re just gonna have to fight and try to win games that are close late. That’s the biggest step for our programme to keep putting ourselves in that position and our players have to remain mentally tough until they can crack it through.”
Andrew Lawrence, who stepped up off the bench after seeing limited minutes in the first two games commented:
“We have to start winning these games. We’re putting ourselves in a lot of great positions but a few key turnovers, a few missed plays down the stretch. But we’ll get it right.”
Jose Calderon had 19 points and some clutch free throws down the stretch, with Pau Gasol adding 17 points.
Game 1
France beat Lithuania 82-74.
Tony Parker has 27, Nicolas Batum 21 for France. Linas Kleiza had 17 to lead Lithuania.
Box score.
Game 2
Australia beat China 81-61
Patty Mills leads Australia with 20, Wang has 21 for China.
Box score.
Game 3
Argentina beat Tunisia 92-69.
Manu Ginobili put in a spectacular first half performance to finish with 24 (19 in the first half), Carlos Delfino had 21, and Luis Scola added 20.
Box score.
Game 4
Russia beat Brazil 75-74
With clutch play after clutch play, it was Russia who ultimately came out on top, with Vitaliy Fridzon hitting a three as he was falling over to win the game with 4 seconds left. Andrei Kirilenko led Russia with 19 points, with Timofey Mozgov adding 18. Leandrinho Barbosa led Brazil with 16 points.
Game 6
USA beat Nigeria 156-73
In a ridiculously dominant, and record-breaking display, USA crushed Nigeria behind Carmelo Anthony’s 37 points, on 10/12 three point shooting, in just 14 minutes (!). Ike Diogu was the only guy to show up for Nigeria with 27 points and 7 rebounds.
Box score.
Notes
- A 9am start didn’t stop the Lithuanian fans from making *a lot* of noise. Awesome.
- I’m not one to blame officials, but some horrific refereeing in the GB – Spain game. Horrific.
- Dan Clark’s ankle seems to be pretty bad. Huge respect to him for playing through it.
- A lot of empty seats for the GB game. And a dead crowd until the final minute. Disappointing. Seems to stem from selling the tickets on a ‘per session’ basis which includes two games. People are choosing the game they want to show up to and missing the other (USA game after was packed).
- Finch also added in the press conference that ‘moral victories are still losses’. The players/staff are visibly frustrated with not being able to get that all important win just as much as the fans are.
- No doubt the Portland press are going to be buzzing over Freeland’s performance against high calibre NBA bigs.
- Carmelo Anthony’s three point shooting display is the greatest long range performance I’ve witnessed since Marcus Eriksson at Future Stars a couple of years ago.
- Arguably the most entertaining day of basketball I have ever witnessed. The Russia gamewinner, GB – Spain thriller and USA dominance were all moments I will never forget.
Thoughts on any of the games? What do GB need to do to get their first win? Let us know in the comments!
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
very dissapointed by this lithuanian team..one of europes most consistent basketball nations, made every olympic semfinal since 1992 if im not mistaken…this years time, while missing big players, looks more average than it should be…
once againt…it is scandalous that a game like australia china takes place at the olympics (not to mention gb being there) while so many good teams are at home….europe should have 6 team at olypmics…americas should have 4, africa 1 and australia/asia 1…….now that would be a good tournament….usa, argentina, puerto rico, brazil, spain, russia, lithuania, france, serbia, greece, turkey, slovenia, croatia, nigeria and australia….no b***dy tunisia, china, great britain etc
This seems very narrow-minded to me…
The olympics is a global competition, which is about bringing the world together. Therefore it is only right that all continents are represented. Who cares if Tunisia, etc are a step behind the rest of their group, they are there to represent Africa so that the continent of Africa can get behind them.
And saying that giving GB a place is “charity” is completely incorrect, we gave Brazil a good run in the 2nd game, and to say that you must have not even watched how closely we played a team as good as Spain.
enough charity in sports..if theres only 12 teams they should be the best…some of the play has been of such poor quality
Tough loss for GB. Some HUGE shots from Deng, Reinking, Clark & Freeland in the final minutes. I have been a big critic of this team but I must conceed the effort was much better, they gave it everything. However, I still stand by my previous comments about the offensive systems (or apparent lack of) making it harder for ourselves to win. If we can get some better motion and off-the-ball activity this should lead to some easier looks for us.
But great effort to get so close to a truly world class team in Spain. I am feeling more positive and hope we can get a couple of wins in the final two games.
John, your timing is absolutely hilarious. You’re hating on the GB team after they’ve run the second best team in the world to within one point?
If the teams you mentioned couldn’t get out of their qualification tourneys, they weren’t going to medal. It’s as simple as that. So allowing GB, Oz, China etc to compete does absolutely 0 to damage the legitimacy of the competition. The best teams will still win the medals. So your point is utterly negated.
The Olympics is about far more than that. It is a world competition, so should have ample representation from all corners of the globe. And how do you expect the game to grow in some of these countries with absolutely no representation at the highest level?
You’re criticicising this competition on the back of one of the best days of basketball I’ve ever seen. Two out of the 3 games were the David & Goliath scenarios that you seem to despise- and one was as close as it could possibly get, the other was a totally different ballgame- historical, in fact.
Stop hating.
Many of us have been critical of the GB team and its coaching over the past few days, but I would suggest that no one can justifiably be too critical of their performance against Spain.
It might be true that Spain did not play their best, but that will happen to many athletes and teams in any major competition . In addition, the Spanish press quoted the Spanish coach as saying prior to the game that he did not expect too much competition from the GB team, so it was probable that Spain went into the game very much over-confident.
The game was both entertaining and extremely exciting right to the very end and I guess the spectators who saw the game were glued to their seats (or standing up shouting encouragement!!) right to the very last second.
Freeland and Deng played so well and all players gave 100% right to the final whistle. Whatever the results of the previous games, and the team performance in those games, nothing should be taken away from them for their tremendous performance in this game against, as has been said, the, arguably, number two team in the competition.
Sam should take it as a compliment that Hoopsfix is now so visible and popular that it’s attracting the BallinEurope and InterBasket trolls. Don’t feed them and they’ll go away.
FYI, Argentina beat Lithuania by exactly the same margin as they beat Tunisia. Greece couldn’t even beat Nigeria in qualifying.