They reached the quarterfinals here with future Hall of Famer Luis Scola averaging 19.7 points at age 41 but few exceptional talents emerging to replace him and retired stars Manu Ginobili and Fabricio Oberto. This also is true of Argentina, which, in 2004, became the last team from outside the U.S.
Spain’s program is run extremely well and its domestic league, the ACB, is the second-best pro league on the planet, but there is evidence of another edition of elite talents to continue the US-Spain rivalry at the high level maintained for so long. This became the fifth consecutive time the Americans eliminated Spain from the Olympics, two of those coming in the 20 gold-medal games. The golden generation of Spanish basketball, which claimed the FIBA World Cup title in 2019, lapsed into history without medaling at the Olympics for the first time since 2004. Of the four who’ve yet to reach that mark, Alex Abrines, Alberto Abalde and new Rockets first-round pick Usman Garuba scored a combined three points in 46 minutes of playing time. Of the 11 players who appeared in this game for Spain, seven were 30 or older, including such international legends as Pau Gasol, Marc Gasol, Rudy Fernandez and Victor Claver. This was an instance of the Americans not being kind to their elders. And then we came out in the third and hit them in the mouth.” “But the end of that second quarter was key. And then we started rushing once were down seven or eight, and they took advantage of it. “We got some good looks – we just didn’t hit. “They benefited from us not really making shots,” Durant told NBC Sports following the game. shot 56 percent from deep the rest of the game and outscored Spain by 24 points. advances | Olympic basketball scheduleĪfter falling behind by 10 points late in the second quarter, making only 3-of-16 from 3-point range to that point, the U.S. RELATED: Rubio's 38 points not enough for Spain as U.S. will decide the outcome of the Olympic men’s basketball tournament based on how it performs, how it responds to the challenges presented by those remaining in the field and not some imagined narrowing of the distance between its talent and that of the opposition. This game was, profoundly, a declaration the U.S. The Americans maintained that cushion, for the most part, until the final buzzer sounded on a 95-81 victory that advanced them to the semifinals and assured they will play for a medal. The Americans put plenty of distance between themselves and Spain in the second half of Tuesday’s Olympics quarterfinal game in Tokyo, surging from a halftime tie into a double-digit lead by allowing no field goals for nearly six minutes after returning from the break. and Spain have played some extraordinary games in recent Olympiads. We’re talking about the classic gold medal game from the 2008 Beijing Olympics.)
If it were true, though, Spain would not have been trying to knock Kevin Durant and friends out of the Olympics with a roster full of veterans from the Spanish-American War.
We have heard it for so long Madrid ought to be three miles away from Montauk by now. This is the song that has been sung for two decades now, every time the USA Basketball senior men’s national team loses a prominent international game.