Spain - Greece

[trifilli]

Spain double and triple teamed our inside game, which is our strength.

They dared us to shoot from far, while we were chasing the score.

They beat us at our own game, the shots were rushed , well defended, and did not go in.

Great opportunity for World Championship...

2nd is not last however.

Silver is above expectations and should be regarded as such.

Thanks for the memories boys.

HELLAS ole ole

Den stamato na tragoudo POTE :gr:

PEACE

[IRAKLIS]

SYXARITRIA POU MAS DOSATE TOSO XARA!!!!!!!! Symmerra imastan para poli atyxoi kia xasame all imsate 2eri ston Kosomo sto basket kia afto enai para poli megalo prama!!!!!

Greece played amazing in this tournament we beat many good basketball teams Lithuania, Turkey, France, China, Australia, and even the usa!!!!! THIS IS NO SMALL ACCOMPLISHMENT. Unfortunately Greece saved their worst game on the wrong day but that is sports it happens all the time.

If you look at the history the best greece has ever done in a mundo basket is 4th place in 1994 Toronto, and 1998 Athens. This our first medal from the competition. Id like to congratulate them again they showed the world how strong Greece is at basketball even though we only have a population of about 10million.

BRAVO PAIDIA ISTE MANGES!!!!!!!!!!!! :gr: :gr: :gr: :gr: :gr: :gr: :gr: :gr:

---any how,,,, First of all I would like to tell all those people in both this forum and greeksoccer.com who bashed our team for losing today that they are a disgrace not our basketball team. This is not how you show support to a team that accomplished so much, plus what do you have to be imbaressed for and pissed off about??? Would you like to be in their shoes playing in the final with pressure cause you beat the USA. Would like it if you were losing in a championship game by 20points and none of your shots would connect, team is in foul trouble and you choked in the biggest game of your career. They are the ones who have to bear the loss not you, the last thing they need is some m#$%! on a computer calling htem a rezili and xeftila. I think some of you need to re-asses what the definition of sucess is and understand that finishing 2nd is a sucess.

ps- when we beat the spaniards at the next euro cup and hopefully win the tournament i hope none of you haters post in here, you are just a bunch of banwagon fans and bitch like little morons when you lose. Get over it..... its not your problem its theirs..... so just enjoy the moment and if you cant to bad. Im sick of all the bickering over vlakies in here, this forum used to be much better people had great information and wonderful input on conversations. Now its just a bunch of immature paidiakia shooting their mouths off.

[Paoktsis]

First, I think we need to all congratulate our National Team for a great tournament. The fact we did not win was not due to a lack of effort. Our boys played with guts and glory.

Two importnat factors that played into the outcome of today's game:

1. Our Ethniki was coming off of an emotional win over the US. Historically, teams that pull off that type of win, go into the next game emotionally drained.

2. The absense of Pau Gasol, no matter how much our players want to deny it, gave us that sense of ease of their best player missing, and even more important, gave the Spaniards something to prove.

Regardless,

ELLADARA GIA PANDA.

:gr:

[DUDE]

I'm sooo gutted paidia. We choked big time! We hit 20% of our 3 pointers, thats terrible by any standards. Was it Pressure? Fatigue? Did we miss Zizzi? Or are they just better??? I really dont think they are! I really do think we flopped because of pressure. Nonetheless I'm so proud of our boys! Bravo Elladara! We'll be back! :gr:

[Argonut]

I would also like to thank our boys for the trills that they gave us these past 2 weeks. 2nd is above what we exected to get so this is still a great accomplishment. Thanks again and we will always walk together win or lose. :gr: :gr: :tup: :tup: :gr: :tup:

[The2ndMouse]

We all know our team could do better ... but its simple ... Spain played superbly and deserved this 100%

So well done to Spain and well done to our lads who have more successes in front of them

[Georgios10]

Congrats to our team. They made us proud worldwide even with the loss. Basketball sometimes is about who is hot and cold. Greece were very cold. The only glimmer was in the beginning of the 2nd half. We got within 16 points, Fotsis missed a 3 pointer and Spain then missed. Papaloukas came down the court and turned the ball over. This was a 2-3 minute spell which was the only part of the game where Spain did not play. 37 out of 40 minutes is pretty good.

It hurts on the inside on what could've, should've, but in the end we are silver medallists.

:gr: :gr: :gr:

[drakos13]

ps- when we beat the spaniards at the next euro cup and hopefully win the tournament i hope none of you haters post in here, you are just a bunch of banwagon fans and bitch like little morons when you lose. Get over it..... its not your problem its theirs..... so just enjoy the moment and if you cant to bad. Im sick of all the bickering over vlakies in here, this forum used to be much better people had great information and wonderful input on conversations. Now its just a bunch of immature paidiakia shooting their mouths off.

bandwagon? ive been supporting greek basket fanatically since i was born and maybe more than football!... this is the greatest team weve ever had, we are fantastic and they did fantastic.

I KNOW Greece can beat Spain. So when we beat them next time we play it matters nothing...I know how great this team is and its perfectly fair to expect better than that...Silver is still an accomplishment but you have to put up a better fight.

like I said there are 2 sides to this.....you are happy for what was done (and yes I was) but also this performance is a giant letdown and this was so unbeleivably below our standard its shocking. There is the OTHER side which people are just ignoring - is that was the worst possible way to approach that game. Of course we are proud of what was achieved...but if you understood how strong this team and program is you have every right to be disapointed that we did not even put up a fight for the gold....that Spain would have probably won anyways---they could not miss a shot to save their life...it seems like Spain/Spanish teams (at least for PAO) always play their best with us...

The goal was a medal and they achieved it....but with the gold and the cup so close and over in the first period- im unjustified to talk badly about the teams performance and coaching? Come on...

But outside of todays performance- of course Im pleased for the mostpart, though we just need to work on our consistency and then we will be taking gold in olympics... Greece showed our league is one of the best, and they are an elite basketball nation. but also this tournament was awful for Greek league! now the NBA is going to steal all our players! :P

[TheCity1924]

@Drakos

I would have loved to see Greece become the world champions. However, Giannakis is a great coach. He motivated his team and steared them through 8 consecutive wins.

So what we lost against a great team that was also undefeated in the tournament.

The game against the USA took a lot out of the team emotionally and it showed. With that said we are still the second best team in the world from a country of 10 million people.

In my opinion Greece are the champions. And lets not forget that they are also the European champions. The only difference in this tournament is that they beat probably the most individually talented players of the world.

ELLADARA OMADARA!!!

[dark_horse]

Everybody, this loss is very devestating. True, but Greece did something not even the 1998 team could do, that is 2 things, beat the United States and play in the championship finals. These group of brave ball players deserve all the respect in the world. I'm happy of what they have done in this FIBA tournament. 8 wins striaght is not very easy to do with the likes of Turkey, Lithuania, Brazil, United States, etc. Hugh bravo to team Greece in getting the silver medal. Big congrads to Spain for there wonderful run at the title. Next time we hope Greece can win it all in Turkey. ;)

:nw: :nw: :nw: :nw: :nw: :nw:

Protathlitis stin kardia mas!

[Nick99]

First, congrats to Spain for battling and winning a well-deserved gold going unbeaten in 9 matches. They battled and were muuuuuuch hungrier, quicker and more hard-working than our boys. I honestly think Gasol's absence did them some good.

Second, congrats to our boys for the historic 2nd place finish.

Last, I share much of drakos' frustration and anger. This type of performance at this crucial a time in a tournament is totally inexcusable. Guys, we shot 32% according to the stats (which I think were generous; I was counting and it looked like 25% at best.)

Anyway, assuming the 18 for 55 (32%) stat is accurate, that is about half our % vs USA (62%), which itself was sizzling and not likely to be repeated any time soon. But let's say we woulda shot 50% instead of 32% in the final, that's 28/55 boys, in other words 10 more buckets, giving us at least 20 pts, probably more with the treys, and making it a game.

This is not the coach's fault, this is the players' fault, who chose the worst time to deliver the worst basketball performance I've ever seen anyway. I never thought anything could erase the elation from the victory over the USA, but you know what those 12 guys in blue-and-white out there just might have managed to do it.

They played like bums. Couldn't pull down a rebound, even gave up rebounds off missed free throws for God's sake which appears to be a trend as they did this vs. USA. One play (I never saw this before in my life, honest) this Spanish player tries a trey, misses, the ball bounces ever so slowly through the paint past 4 blue-white jerseys, to the shooter BEYOND THE ARC, where he coolly scoops up his offensive rebound. I have never in my life seen such a long offensive board, man. Never!

They were dead from the word go. Granted the emotion of the USA win must have been something, but guys get over it, and psyche yourselves for the title match. F*** the semis, that's past, now you're playing for the big prize.

The bitch about it is, I can't hate these guys for disappointing so much. In many ways, it was a matter of time they fell behind so big and fail to come back. The ecstasy of the France game last year and the title match vs. Germany, the elation in the USA game, all that has to balance out somehow, they can't pull that off forever. But, still, they had no business getting killed in this game the way they did. I would've been to digest a 1-2 pt loss heck even a 5-pt defeat, but a 23-pt deficit??? Especially scoring only 47 ( in other words they had 50% more pts than us, can you believe this, in a final.) This has to be the biggest finals blowout in FIBA history.

I hope this doesn't devastate the guys' confidence, but rather galvanizes them and shows them how it was hard work and concentration that got them this far in the first place, and they must never play like bums again in any game let alone a title match.

Still, congrats for the silver, and we'll get them next time, and the best team won, and all that.

PS. Thanks very much to GS for his nice comments, and to all others who are kinder to the team and who apparently didn't take this loss as bad as me.

[aekrossoponti]

oh F*** off...immature, dispeable???, ungrateful? so hitting 20% field goals and getting raped in a game where we were favourites-and being upset about it is ungrateful.....yeah...ok.

everybody in here knows Greece was perfectly capable of taking gold. But they played disgracefully on what should have finest hour.

I know we are better than that. And Im not the only person in the world that feels we should have done a hell of a lot better than that.

we were only made to be favourites by our media. with gasol in the team spain would have been clear favourite, they have nba players and they have the best league in europe. so its not that we are clear favourites against spain. we always had problems against the spanish teams...

i didnt like the performance we gave and makes it seem like we are a joke, but on the other hand spain was perfect today and may also be the better team overall if we look at it objectively. still i enjoyed the tournament, we have a good team, kala paidia and were the only team to beat the us...we came from a tough group and went all the way, today was our occassional bad game, still silver is more than we expected before the tournament.

[Peiraias71]

The problem here is that in this competition, the two teams only played a single game for gold. This does not ensure that the best team always wins. Why do you think in the US most sports have a 5 or 7 game series. Im sure if we played 7 games with Spain we would come out on top. But we would of gotten the silver medal anyway. No one would beat the Americans in a seven game series and you can take that to the bank. Thats point one.

Point two: How funny we Greeks are. These players went from heroes to useless in a matter of two hours. No one here has the right to pass judgement. Not unless you could of accomplished what they did. The only one that has the right to judge them is their coach, who by the way is one of the top bb coaches in the world.

Point three: I for one am very proud of this team, unlike our football team they didnt flop after winning the European Cahmpionship. What happened today was a big letdown, seen it happen many times after a team has given its all. They played like crazed animals against the US and simply had nothing more to give. Cant blame them for that. We must understand that psychology in sport reigns supreme over talent. Take our football team for example. You think talent wise they deserved the Euro? No way. Rehaggel just had them in a mind set. Same with the Spanish today. They had the mindset and we were drained emotionally.

This team will only get better as time passes.

Point number four: Those that think that so called European BB is as good or better than American are absolutely out of their minds. The difference is night and day. American BB players dont give a damn about the FIBA world cup. If they did they would never lose. Anyone with knowledge of the NBA can see this. I live in the US and they barely even covered the loss to us or the win for the bronze medal. The guys there were there just to have fun, they didnt excpect to lose along the way, but it wasnt a big deal either. If the tournament was played in the states, they would go undefeated for the next 100 years.

That all from me, Im proud of the Hellenic team and wish them better luck next time.

[Argonut]

My Friend I agree with most of your post exept the part that if the tournament was played in the states that they would not lose for 100 years. The last tournament was played in the states in Indy and they finished 6th so please don't tell us they really don't care about it. I live in Canada and we are the same way with Hockey. PS thanks again to our Greek Natinal team for the great moments they gave us and we will always walk together with them win or lose. :gr: :gr: :gr: :tup: :tup: :tup: :gr: :gr:

[DUDE]

bandwagon? ive been supporting greek basket fanatically since i was born and maybe more than football!... this is the greatest team weve ever had, we are fantastic and they did fantastic.

I KNOW Greece can beat Spain. So when we beat them next time we play it matters nothing...I know how great this team is and its perfectly fair to expect better than that...Silver is still an accomplishment but you have to put up a better fight.

like I said there are 2 sides to this.....you are happy for what was done (and yes I was) but also this performance is a giant letdown and this was so unbeleivably below our standard its shocking. There is the OTHER side which people are just ignoring - is that was the worst possible way to approach that game.  Of course we are proud of what was achieved...but if you understood how strong this team and program is you have every right to be disapointed that we did not even put up a fight for the gold....that Spain would have probably won anyways---they could not miss a shot to save their life...it seems like Spain/Spanish teams (at least for PAO) always play their best with us...

The goal was a medal and they achieved it....but with the gold and the cup so close and over in the first period- im unjustified to talk badly about the teams performance and coaching? Come on...

But outside of todays performance- of course Im pleased for the mostpart, though we just need to work on our consistency and then we will be taking gold in olympics... Greece showed our league is one of the best, and they are an elite basketball nation. but also this tournament was awful for Greek league! now the NBA is going to steal all our players! :P

I agree Drakos. I must say that many here have been unjustly aggressive toward him. He is spot on in his analysis, except the criticism of the coach i think Yiannakis was great.

[plato-ny]

Spain whipped us. They wanted to win more than Greece. Greece's gold medal game was against the USA and didnt focus on the Spain game. Spain was outstanding and without Pau Gasol. I dont beleive if Zisis had played that it would have made a difference because NOBODY on Greece played well against Spain. Greece defeated Turkey, China, France and the USA without him.

Greece managed to defeat USA with NBA players which is something very few teams have ever done and managed to break through into the final for the first time after reaching the semis in '94 and '98.

Despite the Spain game, we went undefeated in the most difficult division. We won the silver medal despite the fact we were predicted to be in 4th overall. Also, we are still the reigning Eurobasket champs. On a side note, we have been Euro 2004 champs, Olympics host 2004, Eurobasket 2005 champs and FIBA WC 2006 silver medalist.

Now, Greece will head into Eurobasket 2007 in Spain to defend its crown and will enter the Olympics 2008 in China and FIBA WC 2010 in Turkey as silver medalists of FIBA WC.

Paploukas, point guard, made the all-tournament team along with MVP center Gasol, his team-mate power forward Jorge Garbajosa, USA's small forward Carmelo Anthony, and Argentina guard Manu Ginobili.

Greece is now ranked 6th in the FIBA rankings. Here is the list:

Team Rank Points

1. USA 832.2

2. ARGENTINA 720.0

3. SPAIN 619.0

4. SERBIA 508.0

5. LITHUANIA 460.0

6. GREECE 429.0

7. ITALY 418.0

8. FRANCE 343.0

9. GERMANY 282.0

10. AUSTRALIA 279.0

11. CHINA 262.0

12. NEW ZEALAND 228.0

13. PUERTO RICO 217.6

14. ANGOLA 206.0

15. CANADA 196.0

16. TURKEY 194.0

17. BRAZIL 168.0

18. RUSSIA 162.0

19. CROATIA 125.0

20. SLOVENIA 121.0

21. VENEZUELA 104.6

22. NIGERIA 100.8

23. ISRAEL 62.0

24. LEBANON 57.1

25. KOREA 51.5

26. QATAR 45.2

27. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 43.8

28. JAPAN 39.2

29. ALGERIA 36.0

30. PANAMA 34.6

31. URUGUAY 34.4

32. EGYPT 34.0

33. LATVIA 33.0

34. MEXICO 25.6

35. SENEGAL 20.8

36. BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA 20.0

37. IRAN 18.1

38. VIRGIN ISLANDS 16.8

39. UKRAINE 14.0

40. TAIWAN 13.5

41. SAUDI ARABIA 12.3

42. TUNISIA 11.0

43. SYRIA 10.8

44. UZBEKISTAN 9.9

44. KUWAIT 9.9

46. INDIA 8.7

47. MOROCCO 8.6

48. IVORY COAST 7.8

49. CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC 7.6

50. CUBA 7.2

50. HONG KONG 7.2

52. CZECH REPUBLIC 7.0

52. MALAYSIA 7.0

52. MALI 7.0

52. MOZAMBIQUE 7.0

56. KAZAKHSTAN 6.3

56. JORDAN 6.3

58. REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA 6.2

59. FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA 6.0

59. BULGARIA 6.0

61. UNITED ARAB EMIRATES 5.4

62. ESTONIA 5.0

62. HUNGARY 5.0

64. GUAM 4.0

65. PHILLIPINES 3.6

66. THAILAND 3.3

67. SWEDEN 3.0

67. PORTUGAL 3.0

69. BAHRAIN 2.1

70. CAPE VERDE 2.0

70. GABON 2.0

72. INDONESIA 1.5

72. SINGAPORE 1.5

74. MADAGASCAR 1.4

*Unlisted Countries are ranked 75th

[drakos13]

I agree Drakos. I must say that many here have been unjustly aggressive toward him. He is spot on in his analysis, except the criticism of the coach i think Yiannakis was great.

thanks file....

yes its maybe fair to say i have a bit of a bias against Giannakis :rolleyes: I know I do....since he really pissed me off in 2004 Olympics and truth is the guy is overated as a coach just like he was a player........though to counter me he has accomplished a lot with the national team and has made Maroussi formidable in the league ..... (but i would say most of it was just the calibre players we had but whatever, its a whole other arguement and unecesary i think well all agree)

I wouldnt say Greece were favourites just from media, but from their incredible form that built up after that Australia game...as well as the depth on the team is unbelievable...

[bar7]

i think we left everything on the court vs the usa

[JUANJO]

YOU DONT WANT TO SEE WHATS GOING ON

DROPI. Utter s%$#!..... great job media, claiming we are champions already ebcause Gasol is not playing----who the hell cares Spain has ALWAYS been extremely dangerous- gasol no gasol it NEVER mattered!!!! The score would still be the same, except Gasol would have the points instead of them distributed....

Spain has won the gold medal. No way such a s%$#! team will come back from 20 against Spain, who is definiitly the best team in the world. Everytime i actually get to SEE the ethniki play they are a complete joke..... I have never been a big Giannakis fan. This game is a reminder...the team has no organization, speed, ---i even see players JOGGING after they score... while the whole spain team is already on the other end of the court!!!!

vlakes......disgrace. I dont care if we beat USA, this is one of the countries most disgraceful athletic moments...we acting as if we have already won. Spain looks determined, excited....we are just expecting to win.....

every game we shoot 40% from free throws..thats absurd! I myself shoot 51%!!!!

Giannakis------BYE! Always been mediocre. When we go against competition equal or better than us he simply cant get it done. He was s%$#! in the Olympics, and the euro..can i remind you how EASY the euro was? play russia, france, and germany to win......anybody can win!

Sofoklis--------BYE! Clumsy, occasionally useful, I wont really miss his lack of talent either.

Don´t be so unfair on greek loss , greece had a really bad day , spain was determined to win and we had a great game . Greece is a great team!!!!. But it was our final that´s all. I specially like this victory because we have shown the world that spain is not only pau gasol it´s been a long time doing a good work with the spanish bball, winning the junior world cup and now the world cup championship. I think this victory relays on pepu , pepu was the coach of estudiantes and it´s known because his teams fight a lot and are so competitive.PEPU is such a great coach. Now i think i can say spain is the best team of the world. Greece will surely fight for the gold medal in spain, and prolly we´ll meet in the final again with or without gasol

Yes i like it a lot, yes garbajosa is the best player of this world championship, garbajosa the best. Spain fought all the game garbajosa scored lot of three pointers he´s class. Only someone without knowledge on bball would underestimate a team like spain with players like vazquez, raul lopez, rudy fernandez, calderon, navarro, cabezas, felipe reyes, and someone called pau gasol yeah.

[JUANJO]

The problem here is that in this competition, the two teams only played a single game for gold. This does not ensure that the best team always wins. Why do you think in the US most sports have a 5 or 7 game series. Im sure if we played 7 games with Spain we would come out on top. But we would of gotten the silver medal anyway. No one would beat the Americans in a seven game series and you can take that to the bank. Thats point one.

Point two: How funny we Greeks are. These players went from heroes to useless in a matter of two hours. No one here has the right to pass judgement. Not unless you could of accomplished what they did. The only one that has the right to judge them is their coach, who by the way is one of the top bb coaches in the world.

Point three: I for one am very proud of this team, unlike our football team they didnt flop after winning the European Cahmpionship. What happened today was a big letdown, seen it happen many times after a team has given its all. They played like crazed animals against the US and simply had nothing more to give. Cant blame them for that. We must understand that psychology in sport reigns supreme over talent. Take our football team for example. You think talent wise they deserved the Euro? No way. Rehaggel just had them in a mind set. Same with the Spanish today. They had the mindset and we were drained emotionally.

This team will only get better as time passes.

Point number four: Those that think that so called European BB is as good or better than American are absolutely out of their minds. The difference is night and day. American BB players dont give a damn about the FIBA world cup. If they did they would never lose. Anyone with knowledge of the NBA can see this. I live in the US and they barely even covered the loss to us or the win for the bronze medal. The guys there were there just to have fun, they didnt excpect to lose along the way, but it wasnt a big deal either. If the tournament was played in the states, they would go undefeated for the next 100 years.

That all from me, Im proud of the Hellenic team and wish them better luck next time.

peraias i think you are wrong when you try to compare spain with the greek football team who won the european championship. There ´s a difference because while greece is nothing in football , and was nothing in that european championship they won it cause they had the best defensive style. Spain has always been top five or three world potences of bball in the last ten years, it´s a team with tradition in bball how can you compare a team that has a garbajosa, a navarro a gasol ,a felipe reyes a raul lopez a vazquez , they are all great players, some of them one of the best of europe like navarro and garbajosa, and a rudy fernandez the best young player of the tournmanet. I don´t know if you follow a lot of bball but why is the spanish league the best of europe, and the second best bball league of the world after the NBA? I thing your judgements on spanish lack of talent in bball . A world cup is never won only by psichologic factors there must be a great team with talent to play and make it in the final, and that team was spain that´s all.

[JUANJO]

This is only a sport don´t be so harsh on your team. Greece is such a great great team, spain had to wait for a longggggggg time to cheer up for a big win like this one, the greek time will come sooner or later.!!!!!!

Spain didn´t want to win more than greece, i am sure the greek players wanted to win as more as our players. But in bball you have bad days, and terrible days. I am a barcelona fan , and remember all the times we lost the final four? I am used to this !!!!!!

Sometimes you lose like this year barça-cska, let´s not remember how awful the referee was against barcelona that day. But well it´s only a sport.

I like a lot to have faced an european powerful house like the greek, i would be so proud if i was a greek fan , a tiny country with only 10 milion people has played the final of the world championship .

If greece beats us in spain i will be the first to congratulate you cause you will have deserved it . Bye.!!!!!!!!!