Quite combative in her second friendly the national teamhowever was defeated 87-80 by Spain in Madrid.
The “official favorite” lined up without Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kostas Sloukas and Giorgos Papagianniswhile she paid for her failure in three-pointers (7/24) and free throws (17/29), but also the missed rebounds (46-29 in favor of the home team).
Top for our representative group Dimitris Agravanis, who scored 24 points with excellent percentages (7/8 inside guys). Exuberant performance by Nick Calathes (8 points, 8 assists, 5 rebounds).
On the other, for Scariolo’s team Willy Hernangometh (23 points, 10 rebounds), Juancho Hernangometh (10 points, 10 rebounds) and Pradia (12 points, 4 rebounds) stood out.
The match
The national team started with Kalathy, Dorsey, Papanikolaou, Agravani and Costa Antetokounmpo. In the first attacks, Itoudis players passed the ball close to the racket and took advantage of the tall ones. On the other hand, the Spanish expected everything from the Hernangomet brothers.
The “official favorite” escaped with +7 (8-15 in 4′), however, the home team woke up somewhere and came back with consecutive three-pointers (17-17 at 8′), forcing the federal coach to call a time-out. With the “old series” Yule and Rudy changing the pace, the “furious rocha” stepped on the gas at the end of the first quarter, which ended with a short header (22-21).
With Brown entering the equation, Scariolo’s team escaped at the start of the second period (27-21). With excellent percentages outside of 6.75m. and a 7-0 streak, Spain jumped to +13 (45-32 at 16′), while our National Team had aggressively blocked rotation.
The improvement of the defense function in combination with the increase in the performance of Kalathi and Agravanibrought the answer of the “official favorite”, who ran 8-0 and cut the difference at the end of the half (45-40).
The streak of our national team widened at the start of the third period and reached 15-0, with Papanikolaou providing solutions and bringing the representative team forward (45-47 at 23′). Somewhere there was a blackout for the Itoudis players, who were blocked offensively, while losing their concentration in defense and rebounding.
This was the consequence the outbreak of the Iberians, who ran individual scores 18-4 and escaped with +12 (65-53 in 26′). The timeout of the federal coach brought the reaction of our internationals, who improved on both ends of the floor to collect the difference at the end of the third quarter (67-61).
The Spanish started better in the fourth period and having more solutions, ran 8-2 individual scores to go away with +14 (77-63 at 33′). The voices of Itoudis and the improvement of the defensive operation, brought the reaction of our National Team, which came close to -8 (79-71 at 37′).
Nonetheless, the hosts kept their cool and with rational choices in the attack, they reached the final 87-80, at the time when the “official favorite” expected everything from Dimitris Agravanis.
The quarters: 22-21, 45-40, 67-61, 87-80.
See here the statistics of the match
Watch the match live from sport-fm.gr here
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