Basketball World Cup: Italy-USA in the quarterfinals

From our correspondent Davide Romani

September 3rd
– manila (philippines)

It will be Italy-USA in the quarter-final which on Tuesday will decide the fate of the Azzurri at the World Cup in Manila. The same as in 1998, our last appearance in the world’s top 8 before today. After the success against Puerto Rico, to understand the pairing of the national team in Tuesday’s match, we had to wait for the results of two games: Serbia-Dominican Republic, decisive for understanding whether the Azzurri would go first or second, and USA-Lithuania, essential to establish the 1st and 2nd place in group J, the group from which our rival on Tuesday would have come out.

Serbia strolled on the Dominican while the USA, thanks to a first quarter to forget, lost by a measure with Lithuania and will now find the Azzurri in their path. A particular match for Paolo Banchero who, after the long soap opera, chose to play for Team USA and not for Italy.

first place

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On the eve the question was: how will Serbia react after Friday’s blue slap? Well Pesic’s team recovers and crashes the Dominican Republic without ever giving Towns and his companions space to play for the chances of qualifying for the quarterfinals. The protagonist of the Serbian show is Bogdan Bogdanovic. The Atlanta Hawks guard puts a bow on a simply perfect first half and forgets the heavy 1/13 from three against Italy: 3/3 from 2, 2/2 from 3 and 2/2 free throws as well as 1 rebound and 3 assists. The first half ends with Serbia leading by 21 points (56-35), a gap that prevents qualification for the quarterfinals (112-79 the final result) and guarantees Italy first place in the group by virtue of the success in the match direct.

rivals

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Once the placement of the Azzurri was “discovered”, attention moved to the Mall of Asia with the USA-Lithuania challenge. There too the first half was one-sided with coach Maksvytis’s team protagonist of a real target shooting: 9/12 from three points and game always in control with the maximum lead reaching +19 (31-12 the 1st fourth) before going into the long break at 54-37. Kerr’s team aims for pride and returns to the game in the 3rd quarter which ends 71-65. In the last 10′ it’s a continuous question and answer with the US team that shortens several times up to -4 without ever being able to catch the Lithuanians (14/25 from final three) for the final 110-104.

Results

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Serbia-Dominican Republic 112-79 (Bogdanovic 20; Towns 25); Montenegro-Greece 73-69 (Vucevic 19; Papapetrou 16); Australia-Georgia 100-84 (Mills 19; Bitadze 20); Germany-Slovenia 100-71 (Schroder 24; Doncic 23); Latvia-Brazil 104-84 (Grazulis 24; Caboclo 20).; Lithuania-Usa 110-104 (Kariniauskas 15; Edwards 35).

so the quarters

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Upper part of the table: Italy-USA (Tuesday); Germany-Spain or Latvia (Wednesday).

Lower part: Lithuania-Serbia (Tuesday); Slovenia-Canada or Latvia (Wednesday).