By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Two thrilling basketball games ended at London with Russia and Spain staying unbeaten in group B. The team of coach David Blatt beat Brazil by a point (75-74) thanks to a big three by Vitaly Fridzon. Just before that, Marcelinho Huertas gave a two point lead to the South Americans (74-72), after one more big three pointer by Alexey Svhed who tied the score (72-72) for Russia. It was a hard fought game with the eventual winners leading by ten points (42-32) at the start of the third quarter and Brazil making a miracle come back.
Almost simultaneously with the final buzzer, the club of Blatt, Maccabi Tel Aviv, announced officially the expected signing of British Olympian Pops Mensah Bonsu, so the American-Israeli coach had one more reason to be happy. The same almost applied to Mensah Bonsu who saw his team giving a big scare to Spain. Seven seconds before the end, Luol Deng cut the Spanish lead to one point (79-78), but the hosts of the Games did not foul in the remaining time and the match ended with point guard Jose Manuel Calderon dribbling the ball until the clock run out.
In the last game of the Olympic tournament’s third day, USA demolished Nigeria. After the first quarter the score was 49-25, USA won by 83 points (156-73) and that’s the best offensive performance in the history of the Olympics and also the biggest final point difference in the history of team USA. Carmelo Anthony scored 37 points in just 14 minutes with 10/12 threes and this is the best performance ever by an American basketball player in the Olympics.
The standings in group A after three games are the following: USA 3-0, France 2-1, Argentina 2-1, Lithuania 1-2, Nigeria 1-2, Tunisia 0-3. And in group B: Russia 6-0, Spain 6-0, Brazil 2-1, Australia 1-2, Great Britain 0-3, China o-3.