By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Lille, France – Another win for Spain in the rivalry against Greece. Longtime head coach Sergio Scariolo was behind many successful showings in the series between the European powerhouses with the latest marking the preliminary round of the 2024 Olympic Games.
“Pau is here. So, probably the spirit of Pau is in the air,” he referred to retired international star Pau Gasol, jokingly responding to a question about wins over Greece in key contests of multiple major tournaments.
“The basic idea was to guard Giannis collectively as a team, but select very well the situations where we wanted to put a second player on him and where we did not want and to select well what we were going to do when the ball was going off his hands,” he talked about the plan to contain Giannis Antetokounmpo in Gameday 2 of Group A.
“On closeout rotation, just stand and get back. That was the most difficult part for the players. Of course, open court transition, offensive rebounds, lobs. That is very hard to stop,” continued the Italian tactician, “I think we did a good job because we did not want to go, no matter what, with two players on him. After all, he can find teammates and nobody can deflect those passes.”
At 1-1, Spain takes on Canada to wrap up the round-robin schedule on Friday.
“I think we had a lot of faith, even with these up-and-downs in the score, and that we controlled it. Overall, we controlled it,” the selector of Spain recapped the win on Tuesday, “We had some little slumps but overall we controlled it. This was a flaw in our last few games.”
Photo Credit: FIBA