Two years after the final of the Basketball World Cup that Spain beat Argentina, both teams meet on Thursday (12h00 GMT) in Tokyo-2020, in a second day of group C in which host Japan plays with Slovenia of the sensation Luka Doncic (04:40 GMT).
Spain got off to a placid start in Saitama against a willful but inferior host. They beat Japan 88-77 in a duel in which they struggled to keep up due to the frequent changes of their coach Sergio Scariolo, who gave his 12 players minutes in search of confidence for the remainder of the tournament.
Quite the opposite for Argentina, who experienced an ordeal (118-100) against Slovenia, with a Doncic in a trance that reached 48 points.
The first two teams from each of the three brackets advance to the quarterfinals, plus the two best third-tier teams, so Argentina urgently needs to win.
“We have not believed ourselves to be the best when we won nor are we going to believe the worst. When we were gold in Athens-2004 we lost two games, when we were bronze in Beijing 2008 we started losing to Lithuania. If this team is going to lose it will not be because of a matter of spirit or commitment, “warned Argentine coach Sergio Hernández.
Before the high-voltage duel between Argentines and Spaniards, Slovenia will return to the park after Doncic’s exhibition that revolutionized the Games.
In its debut in an Olympic event, Slovenia passed over the world runner-up, who had no choice, after going into halftime losing by 20 points.
Many of the 12 players on the Argentine squad paraded in the defense of Doncic, who always found solutions to round off his performance with 11 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 blocks in 31 minutes.
Japan, capable of competing in many phases of the match against Spain leaving a good taste in their mouths, must seek to minimize the damage of Doncic, capable of being decisive in all facets of the game.
“He is our boy. We feed on him. He is our leader, whatever he does on the court, we play around him. When he is like this, we just try to give him energy and try to offer him good positions”, analyzed the Slovenian nationalized American center Mike Tobey (11 points and 14 rebounds against Argentina).
On the Japanese side, two NBA players were the best against Spain, Rui Hachimura, author of 20 points, and Yuta Watanabe, who achieved 19. Both will have to fine-tune in defense if they want to stop Doncic.
– Thursday program:
Group C
(12h00 GMT): Spain – Argentina
(04h40 GMT) Slovenia – Japan
Classification: Pts JGP pp pc diff
1. Slovenia 2 1 1 0 118 100 18
2. Spain 2 1 1 0 88 77 11
3. Japan 1 1 0 1 77 88 -11
4. Argentina 1 1 0 1 100 118 -18
pm / psr