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Despite the score of 0-2, the Greeks still hope for the quarter-finals

Although the first round is in second stage, the meeting is extremely important. The Greeks are under a lot of pressure, one wrong step and they would be out. Prior to the tournament this meeting was expected to take place in the finals, but now Spain has the opportunity to cut the Greeks out of the quarter-finals

Greeks at 0-2, no one thought that would happen. That means that each meeting is for qualifications, and they are starting out with the worst possible opponent. They lost from the Italians, and they thought it was due to a bad day combined with negating Spanoulis. Then came a defeat from the Finnish with Spanoulis as part of the line up, and you know what it's like when a tempered nation loses twice in a row. All of a sudden nothing feels right, there are tiffs between the selector and the captain (Trinchieri and Fotsis), and Trinchieri, who won over the Greeks during preparations, is now nothing more than an Italian phony. It's a short toad from euphoria to disaster.

The Finnish applied the Italian recipe, they pulled out the tall guy out of the paint and then attacked him, usually over Koponen.

- We deserved this defeat, physically and mentally we were lacking behind Finland. We had it coming. We have three days to pull ourselves together, to return to our roots - says Trinchieri.

Belinelli, Aradori and Koponen destroyed them, and now they're in for Llull, Sergio, Ricky, Calderon and Rudy, all of them who like to infiltrate, who are strong. Hopefully Trinchieri came up with a good defensive plan.


- We are in a tough spot, but I can see their expressions are different, they are ready and willing to prove themselves. That is definitely a plus - those are Trinchieri's optimistic words.

Everyone is writing about Gasol on one side and Spanoulis on the other. Even Marc Gasol, when asked what's going on with Greece, replied with a bit of humor, "when it gets tough, let them hand everything to Spanoulis, he'll roll out 20 picks, score 10, give out 10 assists, that's how I would handle it". It's clear that Spanoulis is the soul of this team. Even after his injury, he still played 33 minutes against Finland and scored 17 points; Zizis with 19 as the best shot.

-Marc is going to be a challenge, but Marc isn't Spain. We will block him aggressively. I have in mind three players who could be on him all the time - says Trinchieri.

The problem is that Greeks have little to block, especially since they have trouble with centers while defending the pick. The Spaniards are probably the toughest team in Europe. They have four nominal plays which are filled by two back positions in which the pick is their strongest weapon. Mavrokefalidis and Bourousis are quite slow, they leave a lot of empty space behind them, so Zizis and Perperogluou (foremost) are expected to be on the player with the ball.

- We have to leave our souls on the court, but also be disciplined. We can't make mistakes because they are extremely dangerous when running the offense. We have to take that away from them by implying a patient, logical offense - that's the tactic which Trinchieri  revealed to the Greek press.

That probably means owning the ball a bit less than usual. The Greeks will play the offense of some 20 seconds, accenting quality defensive transition after the shot.


Canaris centre, the Greek Fotsis Lampropoulos, provided an interesting thought on the meeting for the Spanish Basketball Federation.

- I don't believe Greece could play against Spain, we depend too much on Spanoulis. I think Spain in the obvious favorite in that meeting - he said.

It's obvious the Greeks are driven into a corner, although with three wins in the second lap they would manage to squeeze into the quarter-finals, maybe even with two if the results turn out to their benefit. The problem lies in the fact that they got the Spaniards in the first round. Another defeat would be a nasty shock for the Greek morale.

It would be interesting to see who will Spanoulis guard in the offense. The Spaniards don't have a trick up their sleeve on which the Greeks could hide and rest their prime player in order to prepare him for a fresh attack. We assume that he'll be heading for a back (Llull, Rodriguez, Ricky, Calderon), and in that situation we could expect most of the offenses coming over him. Orenga will breathe down his neck in Spain's offense.

Spain did their first round in "second gear". Disregarding their flop against Slovenia, they did all their games with minimum effort. Their average wins were with 27 points of difference, and that should definitely prove to be a plus in this tournament's system. The defense with which Spain broke the records was especially impressive. In that way they left Croatia at 40, and Czech Republic at only 39 points. Although Spain's inner game was discussed as one of the major problems before the tournament (because they only have Gasol in that class), that wasn't noticed so far. The Spaniards held the rebound against everyone, except in the meeting against Poland, but selector Orenga doesn't see a problem in that:

- Sometimes we willingly risk losing rebound to gain extra speed. When we play with four short players, we are a lot faster and hard to defend. We become much more aggressive, we steal a lot more balls and the game becomes more fluent.

Still, with Gasol on the court Spain can hardly lose their rebound, because the man is simply dominant under the hoop and he didn't let anyone rebound with him around, and he won't let the Greek centers do that either. Although prior to the tournament Greek was the favorite, and it was thought that this meeting would be a big derby, today all agree that Spain is one step ahead at this point.

-We are healthy, calm and rested. The players can hardly wait for the second round to start. So far we've played top-notch defense, but we're still waiting for our offense to kick in and then we'll be great.

Orenga thinks his team has found the perfect form, and when it's like that, the Spaniards are better than everyone else, despite their absences.

- We've achieved the wanted speed in the game. When we combine defense with a quick transition, no one can stop us. The gain is that with each game a new player pops out, so the opponents don't know how to defend us. If they press Marco, Rudy will punish them. If they press on Rudy, Llull is on their backs, and so forth.

The Spaniards, full of self-esteem, are waiting to meet the team with whom they were seen in the finals. But, due to the circumstances, this game could well be the one where Spain will kick Greek out of the quarter-final fight:

- Greece has no options left and winning is currently their imperative. That is why they will meet us with maximum motivation, and we're in for a physically demanding game. We can't go into the game thinking how it's more important to the Greeks than to us, because it's not. Winning is very important for us as well, and we have to wish for it more than they do - sad Spain's selector.

Before the meeting, Ornega admits that he isn't fretting too much over Spanoulis' defense:

- He's an excellent player, without a doubt. For two quarters he can be invisible, and then he kills you in second half of the game. We have enough options to stop him, but we can't focus exclusively on him.

We could expect Rubi to block Spanoulis. His defense is great, and he can chase Spanoulis around as much as it is needed. That goes hand in hand with the fact that the top Greek player had injury problems and his condition is questionable. However, Spain's back position has such a long rotation that Spanoulis' each attack could be blocked by another player. Defense will thus be crucial, although Marc Gasol offers an interesting thought on the subject:

- The defense won't work if you don't play a smart offense. If you rush, you will lose balls and won't have time to put up the defense. We experienced that against Slovenia, and it can't happen again.

The Spaniards will again base their game on defense and quick transition. However, if they experience a counterattack, they will play very long offenses, and we can expect a very "slow" game with low scores.

The Greeks are in a worst kind of position prior to the game with Spain. They can still decide their own faith and even have a small chance if they lose today's game. By most experts these are the two strongest teams. The Greek team is made in such a way that they won't be able to stand up to the Spaniards and Trinchieri prepared three centres to terorise Marca. They won't stop him but they can surely wear him out. They have a problem with defending and that only puts them in a position of the underdog. A tough game is expected and the Spaniards need the win. They dominated with their defense against weaker teams especially playing offense. The Greek wide line can defend against their attacks and they have some tough players to defend against Gasol. They are even stronger on the position of power forward. In a controlled game with less total points this handicap seems too big. The Greeks have showed that they should never be written off, both in club and national games. Trinchieri is to put all his best on court and thinks it is worth the stake.

Marc Gasol will play 32-35 minutes today, there is no question about it. He is a phenmenal asset to Spain's defense which has been dominant here, only because of him. By reading the statement from the Greek coach Trinchierio, one can see his fear of Spain's transition and his desire to control the game, and we can assume that the Greeks will sacrifice offensive rebounds in order to get back into defense more quickly. I won't waste many words on Gasol's rebounds, as he's been unstoppable in the NBA. He has averaged 8.5 rebounds on this tournament, but this average can be deceiving. He had 6 and 8 rebounds in 21 minutes against Poland and Georgia, respectively, 11 rebounds in 34 minutes against Croatia, 10 rebounds in 31 minutes against Czech Republic, and he only "flopped" against Slovenia with 7 rebounds, somewhat due to 6 rebounds from Claver, who has averaged 3.5 rebounds here. This is one of the reasons for this pick, Claver is not a typical number four, he isn't so prone to rebounds and this leaves a lot to Gasol. This bet is available at Nordic.