Not surprisingly, Team USA dominated anew in
the recently-concluded 2014 FIBA World Cup in Spain. The Americans were just
too good, sweeping the competition in the quarterfinals, semifinals, and in the
championship game. Serbia and France, meanwhile, turned a lot of heads by
playing beyond expectations and knocking off some strong rivals.
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| Team USA, Serbia, and France finished atop the heap in #Spain2014. |
Game
recaps (adapted from FIBA.com):
Quarterfinals:
LITHUANIA
over TURKEY, 73-61
Darjus Lavrinovic pumped energy into the
Lithuanian engine powering the Baltic nation to a big win over Turkey at Palau
Sant Jordi. The win marked Lithuania's second consecutive trip to the
semifinals of FIBA's flagship event. Lithuania, who now await the winners of
the Slovenia-USA Quarter-Final, made 10 of its 19 three-pointer attempts.
Turkey raced out to an 18-10 lead after the opening period before Lithuania
found their bearings in the second, thanks to the sharp-shooting brilliance of
Lavrinovic. The 7’0 big man made all three of his three-pointers in the first
five minutes of the second quarter, the last of which put Lithuania up 24-23
for their first lead of the game since Jonas Valanciunas had scored the opening
basket.
Renaldas Seibutis led Lithuania's scoring with
19 points and Martynas Pocius added 13. Valanciunas pulled down 13 rebounds to
go with his 12 points. Omer Asik, who played braving a flu, led Turkey with 11
points and 10 rebounds. Emir Preldzic, the hero of Turkey's campaign, accounted
for 10 points.
USA
over SLOVENIA, 119-76
The reigning world champions USA tightened the
screws in the third quarter to leave Slovenia behind and take a comfortable win
in the quarterfinals. They extended their unbeaten run in the competition to
seven games and set up a semifinal clash against Lithuania, a team they faced
four years ago at the same stage of the competition. The USA needed almost two
minutes to score its first field goal, which came by way of Kenneth Faried. The
Denver Nuggets power forward, the team's second leading scorer behind Anthony
Davis, went on to finish with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Klay Thompson finished
with a game-high 20 points, while Davis had a double-double of his own, with 13
points and 11 rebounds. Goran and Zoran Draigc combined for 24 points and Domen
Lorbek had a dozen for the Balkan side.
FRANCE
over SPAIN, 65-52
France created a seismic shock in the World Cup
booting tournament hosts Spain out of the tournament. Vincent Collet’s team
prevailed after improbably outrebounding the Spaniards, 50-28. Two of Les
Bleus' rising stars, Rudy Gobert and Joffrey Lauvergne, dominated the boards.
Utah Jazz big man Gobert had 13 rebounds to go with his five points and
Lauvergne had 10 to go with his four markers. Thomas Heurtel, who plays his
club basketball in Spain with Laboral Kuxta, had 13 points and four assists for
the winners. Spain, who went up against a determined French defense all night,
endured an almighty struggle with their shooting. They were two of 22 from
behind the arc and 20 of 62 on the evening. Boris Diaw, an NBA champion with
the San Antonio Spurs last season, led the French with 15 points and five
rebounds.
SERBIA
over BRAZIL, 84-56
Serbia tore apart Brazil in the third quarter,
outscoring them 29-12 to blow this game wide open and roll to a convincing
victory. Brazil and its trio of NBA centers in Varejao, Tiago Splitter, and
Nene beat Serbia earlier in the group phase, they couldn’t do much in this
encounter. Guard Milos Teodosic scored 23 points, and shooting guard Bogdan
Bogdanovic added 12 for Serbia. Varejao had 12 for Brazil.
Semifinals:
USA
over LITHUANIA, 96-68
Klay Thompson helped the reigning world
champions USA recover from a sluggish start to book a triumph over Lithuania in
the semis and return to the championship game. The Baltic nation matched the
USA move for move, play for play and most importantly score for score to keep
things even at least at the beginning of the game. Adas Juskevicius had his
best start of the tournament, standing shoulder to shoulder with Jonas
Valanciunas in leading the team's cause. The Americans got their first lead of
the game close to the midway point of the first quarter when Thompson - who
entered the game for his Golden State Warriors teammate Stephen Curry - hit his
team's first three-pointer for a 10-9 edge. Irving led all scorers with 18
points, 13 of them coming in the second half. Thompson and Harden added 16
each, while Curry finished with 13. Mindaugas Kuzminskas who had a grand total
of 12 points in Lithuania's first seven games, shared top-scoring honors with
Valanciunas as both finished with 15.
SERBIA
over FRANCE, 90-85
Serbia will get the chance to write a new page
in the storied history of Yugoslav basketball as it reached the Final of the
World Cup by knocking off France. Milos
Teodosic poured in 24 points for Serbia, while Bogdan Bogdanovic added 13. The
trio of Stefan Markovic, Nenad Krstic and Miroslav Raduljica each had 11, while
Nemanja Bjelica finished with 10 points, seven rebounds and five assists as the
Balkan powers reached their first final of FIBA's flagship event under the
Serbian flag. France got 35 points from Nicolas Batum - 17 of them coming in
the fourth quarter - and 13 from Boris Diaw as the European champions came back
from an 18-point deficit to make a game of it down the stretch.
Third
Place Game:
FRANCE
over LITHUANIA, 95-93
France recovered from a rough third quarter
just in time to scrape past Lithuania for its best-ever result in FIBA's
flagship event. Vincent Collet's team controlled the proceedings for a better
part of the first half, but then dropped their guard in the third quarter
before recovering in the final period to post the victory. Nicolas Batum was at
the forefront of France's offense throughout the match and finished with a
game-high 27 points. Jonas Valanciunas finished with 25 to go with nine
rebounds for the losing side, while French big man Joffrey Lauvergne had 13 points
and nine boards.
Championship:
USA
over SERBIA, 129-92
The United States shot their way to the 2014
FIBA Basketball World Cup title by hitting 15 three-pointers in a rout of
Serbia in the Final to become the first repeat world champions since 2002.
Kyrie Irving and James Harden combined to hit nine of 11 three-pointers and
scored 26 and 23 points respectively to lead the Americans. Six other US
players scored in double-figures, including DeMarcus Cousins, who had 11 points
and nine rebounds. The USA, winners of the 2010 FIBA World Championship in
Turkey, claimed their fifth world crown, pulling them even with Yugoslavia for
the most in history. Serbia secured its best placing under the Serbian flag as
runners-up. Irving was rewarded for his impressive tournament and huge
individual performance in the Final by receiving the Most Valuable Player
award.
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| #Spain2014 was Kyrie Irving's coming out party. |
Reflections:
Maybe
not having the NBA’s top-tier stars was a good thing
No LBJ? No KD? No CP3? No Dwight Howard? No
Tony Parker for France? No Manu for Argentina? No Turkoglu and Ilyasova for
Turkey?
No problem.
The fine thing about not having all of the
NBA’s top-tier stars in the FIBA World Cup is that we got to see other players,
new stars if you will, emerge. Kyrie Irving and Kenneth Faried were golden for
the Americans. Klay Thompson and Anthony Davis had their moments, too. Nicolas
Batum and Rudy Gobert stepped up big time for the French. Facundo Campazzo and
Marcos Mata had their moments for the Argentines. And as for the Turks? Well,
Emir Proeldzic is one young guy we’ll all do well to remember.
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| Nicolas Batum was clutch awesome for France. |
Has
Team USA widened the gap again?
Here’s the thing – the Americans wiped the
floor in #Spain2014 with the competition. There’s just no other way to describe
their performance except to say it was sheer dominance. Coming in, we all knew
that coach K’s crew was already the most athletic, but they also looked the
hungriest out there. Most of these guys were kids who wanted to prove they not
only belonged on the world stage, but owned it, too.
And they just did, whipping their foes by an
average of 33 points. In contrast the 2012 Olympic Team, which featured LeBron,
Melo, Paul, and KD, beat foes by 32.1 points per game, and 2010 World
Championship team defeated their opponents by just 24.6 per outing.
In the London Olympics, Team USA had two games
decided by 7 points or fewer, while in the 2010 World Championships in Turkey,
the Americans had two games decided by 10 points or fewer (including a 70-68
squeaker over Brazil).
If we use these data as our primary indicators,
it sure seems like coach K’s young ‘uns just widened the world basketball gap
again.
New
powers are rising.
Serbia and France won medals in the World
Championships for the first time (Serbia was part of the greater Yugoslavian
teams in the past, though). Senegal and Mexico qualified to the Top 16. Our
very own Gilas Pilipinas gave some of its more ballyhooed Group B rivals more
than they bargained for. Slovenia romped through its early games. Even teams
like Ukraine and Finland showed a ton of promise. Despite the USA seemingly
widening the gap between #1 and the rest of the world, it seems like there are
certainly a lot of other countries gaining ground in world basketball. FIBA
loves this, of course, as it means potentially more level parity across the
board and fewer blowouts in future world-level jousts.
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| Slovenia turned a lot of heads in #Spain2014. |
The
2019 FIBA World Cup should be even bigger.
With the next edition of the FIBA World Cup having
a record-high 32 teams, going through a FIFA-style qualification system, and
being hosted by a non-Euro country for the first time since 2006, things sure
are shaping up to be bigger than ever.
More teams means more fans will tune in to
World Cup-related developments and will bump up FIBA’s digital presence even
more. This also means more merchandise can be marketed, and more sponsorship
opportunities.
Of course, this also means there’s a lot more
pressure on FIBA and the next host country (can you smell it, Manila?) to
really deliver, but if this latest World Cup is anything to go by (along with
the fact the FIBA World Cup will no longer be held in the same year as FIFA’s),
then there’s nowhere to go but up for the biggest international basketball tournament
in anybody’s calendar.
This is the reason I’m really hoping the
Philippines gets hosting rights for 2019. We’ve shown the entire globe that we
have some of the wildest, most rabid, basketball fans in the world. By 2019, we
will already have sufficient infrastructure for the games (hopefully, however,
better infrastructure for transportation and communication, too) and a plethora
of world-class accommodations. We have a rock-solid national sports association
for basketball, and we definitely won’t have any shortage of media mileage. It
should be awesome. It should be a no-brainer. C’mon, FIBA. Let’s make it
happen.
#Manila2019
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| Who's up for a FIBA World Cup in the Philippines? EVERYONE. |
All images are from FIBA.
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