The Greek national team lost 82-76 to Ukraine in Riga, dropping to last place in Group 9 of the qualifiers and making its path to the World Cup considerably more difficult.
In his post-game comments, Vassilis Spanoulis emphasized that the opponent of the “blue-and-whites” was a step faster than his own team, which—as he noted—tried hard and really wanted to secure the victory.
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He then stressed that the national team isn’t looking at various scenarios for qualification, but only at the next game.
“They were more physical throughout the entire game and a step faster than us. The guys tried really hard; they gave it everything they had. I believe we could have done a better job on some of the things we discussed. We really wanted to win, but we have to move on. We still have five games left—first against Spain—and that’s all we need to focus on. We’re not looking at 5 out of 5 or 4 out of 5—we’re only looking at the next game, not the possibilities. We need to play in front of our fans, bounce back, and put on a better performance. We need to increase our energy and toughness, make better choices on offense, and distribute the ball more effectively. We overused dribbling too many times today. We’re not concerned with what others do; all we care about is being better on both defense and offense and playing with more energy for a longer stretch of the game. “Nick (Kalathis) played very well, but we didn’t capitalize on the Ukrainians’ substitutions, and we didn’t attack their big man, Skapintsev—who’s a physical player—the way I would have liked,” Spanoulis pointed out to ERT.
Later, at the press conference, he added: “Congratulations to Ukraine. There was a very crucial moment in the third quarter when we were tied and made two bad decisions, which our opponents capitalized on with two three-pointers. That’s when the momentum of the game shifted. Overall, we did some things well and a lot of things poorly. Ukraine played more aggressively and was a notch faster than us. Ukraine made a lot of big shots. We played good defense on Mykhailiuk, but he went 3-for-17 from the field and took poor shots; however, we gave up a lot of points to other players, and that hurt us.”
*photo source: fiba.basketball
