By Rigas Dardalis/ dardalis@eurohoops.net
France almost committed suicide, but in the end survived against Croatia, got the 69-64 win and the ticket the to World Cup quarterfinals. Croatia waited until the end of the third quarter in order to enter the game, Bojan Bogdanovic scored 27 points, but couldn’t avoid the defeat and the end of the road.
The first half was more than bad and concluded with France leading with 23-22. The European champions exploded in the third quarter getting a 46-30 lead in the 29th minute. However the game was far from over. Croatia tried to mount a come back, cut the French lead to two points with 52 seconds to go (66-64), but couldn’t steal the win. Despite a missed shot by Antoine Diot, Bogdanovic also missed a three which could give them the lead and the game ended with 4/4 free throws by Thomas Heurtel and Nicolas Batum.
Next stop for the “Bleus” is Spain, as Mickael Gelabale who scored 11 crucial points said: “It’s pretty sure that Spain will win. So, once again Spain, and once again it will be a fight. We have three days to prepare for this game. France and Spain is like a classico game and everybody is waiting for it. The game against Croatia was a tough for us. In the first half it was a defensive game. The second half was way better for us. We made shots and defended way better and we got this victory. We defended pretty well. We have to keep going. We know it’s going to be more difficult if we play Spain. But we have nothing to lose. All of the pressure is on them.”
A disappointed Bogdanovic admitted: “We had black holes in our game during the whole tournament. That happened in the third quarter. I expect more from my team and from me”.