He's just adding to Greece's already big size advantage. France's rebounding and carelessness on offense doesn't bode well for the fourth quarter.
I don't understand the reasoning behind benching Parker, but w/e. Spanoulis has a history being insanely clutch. Alright, I take my De Colo= trash comment.
I don't think this game was a must-win for France, so the coach wanted to give his younger players a chance in crunch time. In fact, by winning their group they might be stuck playing Spain in the next round, so that might be why Parker was on the bench.
That makes sense. It is VERY likely now that France plays Spain in the QFs, and I don't think they wanted that. Batum finished with: 8pts, (4/7FG), 4rebs, 1ast, 1 block, 1 turn in 25 minutes.
I call Bolshevick! Any player wants to overcome the challenge of whatever team steps in front of them. Nobody wants to avoid anybody. In order to be the best, you have to beat the best.
Tomorrow's game board: 1. Lithuania vs. Serbia 2. Spain vs. Poland 3. Turkey vs. Slovenia While browsing the Spurs' forum, I found a handy guide for matchups given tomorrow's games: France is locked into the #1 spot in the other division, so they will play the #4 team from the division above. But before all that, Spain has to beat Poland to enter the quarter final round, so tomorrow's game is a must-win for them against the host country's team. Game starts at 12:15 EST on ESPN 360.
Serbia and Spain both won handily(Rudy had a sub par game with 7 pts, but he played only 22mins. Pau had a monster game with 20pts in 18mins). So, France and Spain WILL meet in the quarter finals tomorrow. One of 'em is going home unhappy.
Earlier I said France was better than Spain. But then in the last two games, Spain woke up. They started playing a lot more uptempo and consequently Rubio is back to being useful. I think the difference will come down to three point shooting and FTs. France just is too streaky from three, or, to put it another way, have too few reliable shooters. And their FT shooting is shockingly bad. France does have the better defense, though. It'll be interesting, but I think France has to be the underdog. Parker vs. Rubio should be VERY interesting, though. And here's hoping for at least one more Batum-over-Pau poster. (The other thing is that France doesn't have the big men. They are basically Parker and a gazillion forwards. It is true that Traore and Bokolo played well against Greece, but it's also true that Baby Shaq was destroying them, but essentially couldn't stay on the court.)
