Spain defeated France in a one-sided game, 92-67 in the men’s basketball quarterfinals of the 2016 Rio Olympics.
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Parker said after France’s 92-67 loss to its longtime Spanish rivals that he has promised San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich and team president R.C. Buford he will halt his global career at age 34 – because of the “toll” it has taken on him physically – and focus on finishing his National Basketball Association career strongly.
Spain continued their outstanding play and their lead ballooned to 18 when Mirotic nailed a long-range jumper, part of a personal seven point run.
It was the last national team appearance for Spurs point guard Tony Parker, an NBA superstar who played for his country when many veterans of his stature opted not to play in the Olympics. Spain (4-2) took care of business by outscoring France 50-33 over the middle two quarters.
But the Spurs have a new big man in Spaniard Pau Gasol, who helped show Parker’s French team to the Olympic exit.
“I’m obviously disappointed that we lost the game and think we could have done a lot better but Spain was just great tonight”.
Parker is miscast as a high-volume player at this point in his career, and Diaw’s reluctance to put shots up detracted from the value of his passing. We go to dinners, stuff like that, double-dates, I was so happy that he made a decision to come and play with San Antonio.
“I’ve been very blessed – that’s all I can say”.
“This is another challenging team, so we have got to come in right”, George said about Spain. “He was the leader we needed for a long time and I told him that I regret a lot that he has a last game like that”. Oh, just an Argentine squad that went on to win gold with four of the same players that are on this year’s team.
France won its only Olympic medal – a silver – in 2000 when Parker wasn’t on the team.
“At the same time, I don’t want to throw away everything that we’ve done in the last 16 years [and] in the last eight, nine years with Coach Collet”. It’s the best results in the history of French basketball. The Spaniards have a roster with 11 former or current National Basketball Association players, including Pau Gasol, Ricky Rubio, Nikola Mirotic and Jose Calderon. These have always been two of the best, most veteran teams in the league and now they’ll be squaring off on Wednesday with a shot at a medal on the line. “I’m very happy to play with Pau”.
“He’s going to be a great guy to be around”.
Spain had a great generation.
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After the group stages, Team USA came out undefeated but will have the toughest road to the gold medal after the quarterfinals knockout pairings were.
