This is not the same Spanish national team that we have gotten use to over the past decade.
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The Nigerian team will need to pick a win to boost their chances of progressing as they face Brazil and Croatia in their last group matches.
It was all smiles for the US Men’s team as they summarily dispatched China, their first opponent, 119-62.
For the Croatia team, Bogdan Bogdanovic was especially great, he finished with 23 points on 8 of 15 shots, and a last second block by Dario Saric on Pau Gasol sealed the game.
Argentina stretched the advantage to as much as 20 in the third quarter before holding off a late Croatian push in a day of Group B play.
Spain had been talking of a third chance against the American collection of National Basketball Association stars in the Rio final.
With Spain holding the ball outside the three-point arc, Barbosa knocked the ball down court, then chased the play down the court and forced the ball out off of Spain.
Spain’s Rudy Fernandez said the taunts did not cause Gasol to miss.
With the win against Spain, there is now a chance that Barbosa will have more than just the group stage games to find his touch.
Next up for Spain is Nigeria on Wednesday and a team that once talked of dethroning the U.S. team of National Basketball Association stars must now struggle to simply reach the quarter-finals. It was dynamic point guard Marcelinho Huertas who came up big for Brazil.
“We knew this wasn’t going to be easy”. He scored 11 points and reduced Neto’s playing time.
“Nigeria just kept battling us, but we were able to get out of it”. We are happy about the players we have.
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Mantas Kalnietis led Lithuania with 16 points and eight assists, Paulius Jankunas added 15 points and seven rebounds. Hopefully this week will continue to bring us great competition across all sports.
