On Day three of EuroBasket we saw a contest of teams thinking Olympic bids with Germany and France, and we saw why Spain runs its offense through the Gasol brothers. There were only six games played on Friday.
France 76, Germany 65: Let’s give France their due — they are 3-0 and the questions about their offense has been answered by Tony Parker, who had 32 in this one. Parker has been as good as any player in this tournament so far. France also had Joakim Noah in the middle to counter the size of Chris Kaman and Dirk Nowitzki, and that worked.
But the German coach sat a cold Nowitzki (5 of 13 shooting for the game) and Kaman for an extended period in the second half and that pretty much killed the German chances in this one. Here’s a good coaching rule of thumb that Rick Carlisle figured out — if you have Dirk Nowitzki, play him.
Spain 86, Great Britain 69: It was all the Gasol brothers. Pau Gasol had 21 points to lead the team, Marc Gasol sparked a second half run that sealed this game up plus he had 11 boards and 5 assists. We already told you Ricky Rubio was unimpressive. Spain is 3-0 but has yet to play any of the good teams in their group, something that is about to change.
Italy 71, Latvia 62: Andrea Bargnani finally showed up for EuroBasket and played like Italy needs him to — 36 points. Italy was the aggressor, got to the line 28 times and knocked down 25.
Lithuania 75, Turkey 68: Lithuania has great depth and balance — Darius Songaila led the team with just 12 points, and he did that off the bench. The Lithuanian bench was key, as was Turkey shooting 3-for-18 from three. Ersan Ilyasova led Turkey with 20 points.
In other action: Serbia 89, Israel 80; Poland 81, Portugal 73.