IZMIR (FIBA World Championship) - Spain have recorded their first win of the FIBA World Championship, 101-84,  and now ready themselves for a crucial clash with Lithuania on Tuesday.
 
While the final margin was 17 points, New Zealand made them work for it, and the crowd saw an entertaining duel on the wings between Spain’s Juan-Carlos Navarro (18 points) and Rudy Fernandez (12 points), and New Zealand’s Kirk Penney (21 points, 3 assists) and Thomas Abercrombie (19 points).
 
The Spanish frontcourt duo of Marc Gasol (22 points) and Jorge Garbajosa (14 points) also had good outings, as did New Zealand’s Phill Jones with 15 points.

After the victory Gasol visited with FIBATV.Com.

New Zealand coach Nenad Vucinic experimented with his starting line-up, giving the inexperienced pair of Alex Pledger and Jeremy Kench valuable experience against the world champions.
 
But Spain made them pay, running off a 15-5 run over the first 3:31 thanks to two triples from Navarro and a stunning reverse alley-oop from Rudy Fernandez.
 
Once Tall Black regulars Abercrombie, Craig Bradshaw and Lindsay Tait hit the floor it was a different story though, with New Zealand outscoring Spain 39-33 for the rest of the half thanks to superstar Penney and Abercrombie.
 
Penney had 16 points in the first 16 minutes while Abercrombie was on top in his duel with Fernandez, slamming home three spectacular dunks on his way to 13 points for the half.
 
Vucinic went back to his original line-up to start the second half and Spain promptly peeled off 13-2 run in less than three minutes. While New Zealand would again bounce back with their regulars on court – winning the remainder of the quarter – a match winning lead had been established.
 
Both teams have a rest day on Monday before resuming on Tuesday, with New Zealand facing a crunch game against former coach Tab Baldwin and Lebanon.

Quotes

Kirk Penney: I would like to congratulate Spain. Spain made a good effort. While we had a chance at second half, Spain’s bounce-back comes instantly. We tried to be careful, but we lost.

Nenad Vucinic: Spain deserved to win. We experienced some difficulties in painted area, Spain showed some solid defence. We could have play better unless we made some mistakes.

Sergio Scariolo:  I think we were succsesful. Generally we showed good and solid performance. It was hard to defence to NZ but we made it through. We played two times with LIT and it was difficult. We will show a cautitious play and try to win.

Raul: We have to improve lot. NZ played tough. Almost we can’t shot from three.  But we made some advances. We are happy to win. LIT is competitive and talented team. But I think we are ready and hope we will win.
 

FIBA
 
Paulo Kennedy

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ANKARA (2010 FIBA World Championship) – Turkey saw off Russia 65-56 in front of more than 10,000 fans at Ankara Arena to stay undefeated in Group C of the 2010 FIBA World Championship.

Both teams had the hot hand early as the game looked more like a three-point shootout. The score was tied at nine with all points coming from behind the arc.

Both teams eventually cooled off, particularly David Blatt’s men who made only three of 16 attempts from two-point range in the first half and didn’t find their range until late in the game with Turkey holding a double-digit lead.

Andrey Vorontsevich hit a tough shot in the lane to put Russia up 14-11 but the hosts got in front by accounting for the last five of the first quarter.

Ender Arslan connected twice from downtown as Turkey extended their advantage to 25-16.

Sinan Guler buried a three-pointer from the corner as Bogdan Tanjevic’s men took a 33-22 lead at the break.

The Russians went on a 6-0 spurt – capped off by Sasha Kaun’s thunderous dunk – to get within 33-28 early in the third quarter.

The Turks though pulled away once more with Omer Asik and Hidayet Turkoglu knocking down timely baskets.

Semih Erden then flipped up a shot with his back to the basket and completed a three-point play as the hosts went into the final frame with a 48-37 advantage.

Russia’s struggles were best illustrated by Sergey Monya blowing a straightforward looking dunk and Sergey Bykov missing a lay-up from point blank range.

Monya made up for his miss by hitting a three-pointer and Vitaliy Fridzon added one of his own to cut the deficit to 57-49, before Turkoglu re-established a double-digit lead for his team to put the game beyond reach.

Quotes:

Bogdan Tanjevic (Turkey head coach): “This game was similar to the one against the Ivory Coast. We played this game like a surgeon: operating slowly and carefully. I think we spread our energy well throughout the game and got a good result.”

Hedo Turkoglu (Turkey forward): “Our target was set from the beginning: take it game game by game. We worked hard. Coach said that every ball, every score and every second is important. We played hard until the last second. I know I made a couple of stupid mistakes all around. It was a good game for us and I am happy to win. Tomorrow we are going to relax but also keep on training. The day after (Tuesday) we will be competing in order to top the group. All in all, I am happy with tonight’s game.”

David Blatt (Russia head coach): “This was a hard-fought game and I think from our perspective we had a bad second quarter and could not come back. My guys played hard and played good defense but it’s hard against the Turkish team and their crowd. We faced a really strong Turkish team and we made bad decisions at the key points of the game.”

Sasha Kaun (Russia centre): “We played hard, good and smart but our second quarter was bad and it was hard to come back from that. We put pressure on ourselves, we tried to come back but couldn’t do it. We hope to come back strong in the next game.”


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