EuroBasket 2009 — Day 8
Yet another crazy day in EuroBasket. 3 matches with a very close score.
In the first game, Russia and Macedonia fought hard, but in the end, the title holders prevailed: this means Macedonia is going home, but they have achieved quite a brilliant tournament. Not much to say about this game, as I didn’t see it… Russia won 71–69.
On the second match of the day, France remain unbeaten thanks to a buzzer beater scored by de Colo. The whole game was nerve wracking, but once again France gave this impression of always being in control, despite being led by 9 points. The finale was quite amazing, and for once Collet left Tony Parker on the bench for the last quarter, a golden occasion for the players like de Colo, Bokolo to gain confidence — and to see what the team would behave like, should TP be unavalaible for some reason. Also a good way of proving that the Parker-dependency is not that strong! The final score was also 71–69.
Finally, despite a brave effort and a fantastic Jagla, Germany could do nothing against their worst opponent of the night: themselves… Was it inexperience or lack of concentration, just as the German team looked about to take hold of the game, they conceded silly turnovers: 20 turnovers in the whole game! Really frustrating when, in the end, it was just a 2 point matter: 68–70. So Croatia are through, Germany are out, but they really have themselves to blame for losing this last game.
