The friendly basketball match between the national teams of Greece and America played on the OAKA field in Athens finished 59:87 in favour of the hosts. The game with the Americans was the last friendly match of Greece before the start of the World Basketball Championship in Turkey.
Both teams have faced 10 times in their history. The American team won in 8 of the games and Greece was the winner of 2 games. The last victory of the Greeks was during the World Championship in 2006 when they prevailed with 101:95. In Athens, however, the Americans succeeded to show that the 2006 loss is only bad memories from the past. They demonstrated very good game last night that was a kind of warm up for the tournament, which begins after a few days in Turkey.
The American team played with confidence and zeal. Even the Greek public booing did not disturb their good mental state. The guests quickly gained the lead thanks to their strong defence and scoring attack. They led with 30:17 in the 15th minute. It was obvious that the hosts failed to respond to the pace. Despite the strong support of the fans who had filled the hall of the Olympic complex, Greece failed to respond to the attacks of the guests. The team did not enter the game on time and made some mistakes later. The absence of Schortsanitis was apparent. The player stayed on the bench because of a trauma.
Using tricks to deceive the hosts the Americans managed to break through to their basket. They played thoughtfully and spectacularly and passed skillfully. The ball miraculously came out of the seemingly strong defensive blockade and fell right into the basket...in the sight of the Greek guards. Kostas Tsartsaris was the player who managed to gain some advantage for the hosts. The score at the end of the first half was 42 to 32 in favour of the guests.
The second half began with attacks by the hosts. Vassilis Spanoulis attacked the basket of America with success. Greece apparently improved its defence. However, it failed to catch its opponent in the result. Moreover, thanks to Kevin Grand attacks in the 25th minute the difference in the result doubled – 52-37.
Although the hosts had lost the match from this moment on, they did not give up. The fight lasted until the last minute. This could be expected, since the coach Kazlauskas will determine the members of the team for the tournament in Turkey based on the match with America.
Greece (Kazlauskas): Kaimakoglou, Zisis, Spanoulis, Kalathis, Fotsis, Printezis, Perperoglou, Tsartsaris, Diamantidis, Vougioukas
USA (Krzyzewski): Billups, Durant, Rose, Gay, Granger, Love, Odom, Chandler, Gordon, Westbrook, Curry
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