By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
The Group B game between Argentina and Korea didn’t have any surprises. The better team prevailed with Argentina cruising to an easy 95-69 win.
Luis Scola on his record-tying 5th World Cup started the tournament with 15 points and nine rebounds, while Nicolas Laprovittola scored 17 points and led a balanced offensive performance.
As coach Sergio Hernandez said: “Scola is our leader, he is also our “teacher”. He was one of the top EuroLeague players, he played in the NBA, in the Olympics. He is 39 years old but he gets up every morning and starts practicing before anyone else”.
The dominance of the Argentinians was evident from the first quarter which ended with a double score (22-11) and continued with any hiccups. Strangely enough, Korea got one rebound more than Argentina (49-48), but the Asians finished the game shooting just 32% from the floor.
Everything went as planned for the eventual with Argentina leading by 15 at halftime (43-28) and by 27 at the end of the third (71-44) while shooting an impressive 55% in threes (17/31).
Hernandez was happy and explained: “The first game is always important and you have to feel good. Korea is a team that doesn’t stop running, they shoot a lot and we neede Laprovittola making those threes in the third quarter for us”.
Facundo Campazzo who was pressed to speak in English and he did, despite being timid about his linguistic skills: “Korea plays very fast and we tried to stop them. We were focused, we have to continue like that for the next game”.
Campazzo who was injured last week also addressed this matter: “I feel really good, my ankle is at 95%, we have great stuff that helps me”.
Naturalized forward Guna Ra, a.k.a. Ricardo Ratliffe, tried his best for Korea with 31 points and 15 rebounds. He didn’t have any real help.