The defending European champions Spain qualified to the final after topping their preliminary round group, winning their second round group, and beating Slovenia and Macedonia in the final round. France, in their first EuroBasket final, also topped their preliminary round group, finished second in their second round group behind Spain, and defeated Greece and Russia in the final round.
The Spanish team retained their European championship with a 98–85 win. Juan Carlos Navarro was named tournament MVP, with his teammate Pau Gasol, and opponent Tony Parker being named as two of the members of the all-tournament team; Bo McCalebb and Andrei Kirilenko were the other members of the all-tournament team.
Road to the final
Spain
The Spanish started their EuroBasket 2011 campaign with a close win against Poland, which cut a 17-point lead to two with 17 seconds left before losing, The Spaniards had an easier win over Portugal, posting a ten-point lead in the first quarter and never trailing thereafter. In their final Group A games, Luol Deng's and Dan Clark's 21 points in the first half were not enough against Spain, which were led by Marc Gasol's in the third quarter, who scored 12 points in that period to deny the British from cutting the gap. The Spaniards secured the top seed in Group A with a blowout win against hosts Lithuania; Spain's 38–12 lead at the end of the first quarter proved to be too much for the Lithuanians. In the preliminary round finale, Turkey won against Spain, who were leading by six points at the end of the third quarter when the Turks had a 16–2 run in the fourth period. Pau Gasol did not play as he injured his ankle in the game against Lithuania.
In their first game in the second round, Spain led by nine against Germany but the Germans ended the quarter with a 12–3 run; Dirk Nowitzki gave the lead to Germany with a jump shot at the start of the fourth quarter. However, Fernando San Emeterio and Rudy Fernandez scored on the next possessions to put Spain back in the lead, but Heiko Schaffartzik and Chris Kaman kept the deficit to three points until Spain made the deciding run of the game, leading 72–65 with two minutes left in the game to put the game away for Germany. In their next game, Spain had an easy win against Serbia; the Spaniards limited Milos Teodosic's productivity, and the outcome was never in doubt when they led by as much as 29 points in the third quarter, despite a last-ditch 13–0 run by the Serbs in the fourth quarter. The win clinched Spain's quarterfinal berth. With qualification secure for both teams, France benched Tony Parker and Joakim Noah in their final second game, while Spain played most of their main players, leading to a blowout win for Spain.
Slovenia led in the first quarter of their quarterfinal game 23–16 when Spain tied the score with a 9–2 run. Spain eventually led 35–31 at halftime and never trailed again at the restart to advance to the semifinals. Spain's semifinal opponent Macedonia started the game leading 7–4, later in the quarter, Pau Gasol was benched for committing two personal fouls. Gasol's replacement, Serge Ibaka had several dunks that led to a Spanish run to end the quarter, capped off by a Sergio Llull three-pointer to put Spain's lead at 26–18. Gasol returned in the second quarter, dunking to give the Spaniards their first double-digit margin when the Macedonians had their own 14–3 run, capped off a three-pointer from Damjan Stojanovski to retake the lead, 32–31; Macedonia retained the one-point lead at halftime. Neither of the teams pulled away early in the third quarter, but Juan Carlos Navarro's three-point shots give Spain a 71–62 margin to prevent the Macedonians from getting close, qualifying for the final anew.
All about: EuroBasket 2011 Final
No comments:
Post a Comment