Since 2004, it had never happened that Argentina basketball team will arrive at Olympics only with falls in preparation. It happens this time, on the way to Tokyo 2020, with one caveat: in this case he played much less matches.
This Tuesday he closed his series of friendlies with a wide stumble against USA in Las Vegas, for 108 to 80. Expected? Yes, because it is the rival of a team full of NBA figures. But a wake-up call at the same time, because the United States itself had lost its two previous encounters.
A new wake-up call, strictly speaking, because Argentina had fallen against the other two teams in the Las Vegas home run. The most worrying thing was the Nigerian slap, a 94-71 on Monday. It is true that the Africans are strong and in fact had beaten the Americans, but also that Argentina was in this friendly tournament far from the level expected of the world runner-up.
Scola production compact against the United States (Technical Foul)
For Athens 2004 (Olympic champion) the whole of the Argentine Basketball Confederation had nine preparation matches; for Beijing 2008 (bronze medal), ten; for London 2012 (fourth place), nine, and for Rio de Janeiro 2016 (elimination in the quarterfinals), eight. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this time his enlistment is reduced to three games. None won.
Behind the 84-87 initial at the hands of Australia, defined by a triple in the last action of the match, the one selected led by Sergio Hernandez he chained both setbacks by more than 20 goals. In both cases it left disturbing signs in the game. One of them, the poor fluency of his basketball, as revealed by just 12 assists (27 from the opponent) and low shooting percentages (43.1 in doubles and 31 in triples). That was due in large part to the great defense of the premises. Another factor was the porosity of its own, which allowed high US efficacy (55.8% and 44.8%, respectively).
Luis Scola, at 40, was the best Argentine in the afternoon in Nevada, with 16 so many, 5 rebounds Y 2 passes-goal, in just 18 minutes. Nicolas Laprovittola got 13 points; Facundo Campazzo, 12, Y Gabriel Deck, 10. Nobody got to have 24 minutes of participation, because Hernández resorted to many basketball players in this last preparatory commitment. Something similar happened with the United States, in which no player added half an hour of performance. That is why the protagonism was distributed, mainly between Kevin Durant (17 points), Bradley Beal (17), Zach Lavine (fifteen), Damian Lillard (13) and Bam Adebayo (12).
Summary of the successes of Campazzo vs. United States (Technical Foul)
After the final buzzer, Hernández and Gregg popovich, the United States coach, greeted each other warmly and chatted for a few seconds. Argentina is grateful for having been invited by the local confederation to a competition of that category and in a place already quite relieved of the pandemic, and also for having had first-rate facilities for their training.
The premiere of the team selected at the Tokyo Olympic Games will take place on Monday, July 26, at 1.40 in the Argentine morning, against Slovenia, the team of the formidable Luka Doncic, leader of the Dallas Mavericks and Campazzo’s former teammate in Real Madrid. The second opponent will be Spain, on Thursday 29 at 9 o’clock, and the third and last in group C, Japan, at 1:40 on Sunday, August 1.