France beat Latvia, 10 Points and 4 rebounds for Batum. Will play Israel in a few hours - A game I will watch on TV! Finland almost upset Croatia but couldn't. Pettery with 14 points and 6 assists. Spain beat Poland by just 5 Points, Claver was non-factor (no points, 3 TOs, 1 rebound). Rudy played just 12 minutes, not taking a 3 pointer and making 2/3 from 2-point range. Joel Freeland had 14 points and 4 rebounds in a loss against Lithuania. Luol Deng led the team in almost every category; a guy named Daniel Clark was the other big-man starting and had 8 rebounds. Deng had 10 (rebs) and 25 Points. http://www.eurobasket2011.com/en/default.asp
Nic has played the whole half against Israel and has 7 pts and 3 steals. Parker leading the way with 12. France up 7. You can follow PbP here: http://live.fibaeurope.com/www/Game.aspx?acc=1&gameID=9608&lng=en You can also watch it on espn3.com.
Nic with his usual game. The perfect role-player. 6 steals, some rebounds, some assists. A dunk from a baseline-out-of-bounds pass, a beautiful alley-oop lay-in, a fast-break dunk after a steal going all the way by himself, a couple of 3 pointers. Didn't catch the %'s but from what I've seen (missed about half of the 2nd quarter) they should be very good.
Britain just has too little talent and Freeland was very frustrated against Turkey. Deng looks slow but is still their only good player and is trying to do it all himself. Meanwhile, an ex-Blazer who is actually looking pretty good is Sergei Monia. After Khryapa's injuries he's probably Russia's second-best player (or third, because in international play Mozgov is pretty valuable) and he's a great wing defender.
France vs. Germany today @ 2pm EST on espn3. Nic or Diaw will guard Dirk probably, with Noah taking Kaman. This should be the best game of the tournament so far.
I have mad respect for wherever this game is being played! They are actually warming up to the Wu-Tang Clan! Basketball and the Wu!!!!!!! All things in the world are right!
The French team rely on Parker almost as much as GB relies on Deng. Parker is better, though. Weren't we supposed to be getting him? He's so much quicker than, basically everyone else. If the final isn't France-Spain then there was a major upset somewhere. (Or Parker got injured.) Noah has really improved the French team. Now they can just clamp down. I watched Spain-GB. It was painful. Freeland looked depressingly scrub-like. Ben Gordon should be kicking himself for not playing for GB - he would RULE in this environment. It would be the NCAAs all over again.
