What Went Wrong for Spain in Massive FIBA World Cup Upset?
No Tony Parker. No Joakim Noah. No problem for Team France, which tallied an all-time FIBA upset in upending longtime rival Spain 65-52 in the last of the tournament quarterfinals Wednesday night.
It was bad enough Spain entered the game as the clear-cut favorite to blaze its way to a showdown with co-favorite Team USA—bad enough the loss unfurled on its own home floor.
But it was how Spain fell—what went wrong, when it went wrong—that’s sure to make for the most haunting hindsight of all.
From go, France’s game plan was simple: exercise patience and discretion on offense, pack the paint on defense and live with whatever three-point barrage Spain’s deep backcourt might try to author.
Consider it mission accomplished on that final front:
To be sure, France’s historic win wasn’t about blind luck alone. In Parker and Noah’s absence, Boris Diaw emerged as the team’s unquestioned leader, both vocally and by virtue of his vaunted versatility (15 points, five rebounds and three assists).
At the other end of the experience spectrum, Rudy Gobert—fresh off a rookie campaign in which he suited up sparingly for the Utah Jazz—used his uncanny length to disrupt Spain around the rim, hauling in 13 rebounds in the process.
If the Gasol brothers didn’t know much about the lanky 7-footer before Wednesday’s hardwood coup, consider that oversight remedied:
Spain, meanwhile, was never able to forge a consistent offensive rhythm, the result being the team’s lowest output of the tournament—a full 36 points fewer than what it had averaged in its previous six tournament outings.
Beyond Pau Gasol (17 points and eight rebounds on 7-of-12 shooting from the floor), Spain’s offensive anemia was an equal-opportunity scourge. Most notable was the dual ineffectiveness of Gasol’s fellow frontcourt stalwarts, Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka, who combined to tally just five points and six rebounds on a putrid 2-of-14 shooting.
In fact, Pau Gasol and Jose Calderon were the only two Spaniards to shoot 50 percent or better from the field—the outliers on a curve of dominance few expected to dip, let alone cater completely.
Spain appeared poised to make good on its lofty pre-tournament promise after erasing an early 11-3 first-quarter deficit, while dispatching a perennial threat in the process.
But Spain never held a lead greater than a single point, succumbing to France’s cagey ball movement and—more pertinent still—stunning 50-28 rebounding advantage (including 16-8 on the offensive glass).
Afterward, Juan Carlos Navarro, a longtime Team Spain staple and NBA veteran, admitted his team may have committed one of the most egregious of competitive cardinal sins: overlooking your most hated rival.
''Everyone thought we had won this before it started, but we didn't prepare well for the game and were trying to play catchup the entire way,'' Navarro told The Associated Press (via Yahoo.com). ''They prepared better than we did. We relied on doing what we always do, but our shots didn't fall, and they played with a lot of poise.''
It’ll likely be weeks before Spain’s hardwood handwringing is fully complete. In the meantime, there’s one side that might be celebrating Wednesday’s upset even more fervently than France itself: Team USA.
Mike Krzyzewski and Co., following Spain’s untimely demise, stand as even clearer favorites to capture their fourth consecutive gold medal in international competition—a streak that began following Team USA’s equally stunning self destruction in a bronze-medal showing at the 2006 FIBA World Cup in Japan.
Spain might’ve had the courts and the crowd on its side. In terms of degree of bracket difficulty, however, Team USA’s was by far the path of least resistance.
From a round-robin group that included the likes of perennial heavyweights Brazil, Serbia and France—whom the host country throttled 88-64 in the pair's previous matchup on September 3—to a tournament path featuring many of the same foes, Spain had the much tougher row to hoe.
Still, a Spain-U.S.A. showdown was seen by just about everyone as not merely the best final possible, but the only one:
On Thursday, Team USA will square off against No. 4-ranked Lithuania in the tournament’s first semifinal, with France and Serbia set to do battle on Friday.
If and when the Americans take the floor for Sunday’s final (3 p.m. ET), it won’t be to near the fan fervor that U.S.-Spain might’ve incited. Madrid’s Palacio de los Deportes, once thought to be the stage for Spain’s final ascent up the sport’s global ranks, will instead be forced to host what’s become a most predictable sports crowning.
With a full 15 international medals to its credit, Spain needn’t worry about forgoing its status as one of the globe’s elite basketball powers.
Just don’t expect the sting of Wednesday’s loss—struck as it was by the bitterest of foes—to subside anytime soon.
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