At times it seemed Argentina, already guaranteed a top four spot in Group B, were not particularly interested in helping.
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After a pair of blowouts over China and Venezuela to open the Olympic tournament, the USA received a wakeup call in the way of narrow three-point wins over France and Serbia, followed by a battling 10-point victory over Australia.
Two-time Olympic silver medalist Spain will put everything on the line as they take on Argentina in a win or go home contest on the final day of group stages in men’s basketball competition at Rio Olympics. “We know it’s going to be hard no matter what”.
Spain extended their winning streak to three, reaching the Rio Olympics men’s basketball quarter-finals with a 92-73 win over Argentina. Argentina will now only face the USA if both teams advance to the Gold Medal Game. We know each other really well. “We wanted to be in the quarter-finals again, it’s really the Olympics for us now and this is important for this generation”, – Spain’s Jose Calderon on advancing.
Argentina, which had qualified for the quarterfinals by defeating Brazil on Saturday, got off to an eight-point lead but that quickly dissipated and Spain ended the first quarter ahead 22-15. “So, let’s see what happens in two days”.
Croatia’s Bojan Bogdanovic shot 11-for-19 from the floor for 22 points against Lithuania.
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Philadelphia 76ers forward Dario Saric clearly had more energy from start to finish than he displayed in previous games and helped set the tone early for Croatia. This Argentinian team – with Luis Scola, Andres Nocioni, Carlos Delfino, Ginobili and some talented global players – has gotten in much better shape and is playing much more as a team than they did the last time the US met them.
