Spain blurs its roadmap against Georgia

Spain blurs its roadmap against Georgia

Los de Scariolo concedes in the prorogation in Tbilisi their first defeat in the qualification for the 2023 World Cup

   MADRID, 4 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Spanish basketball team blurred this Monday with a defeat (82-76) after an extra time against Georgia in Tbilisi its classification for the 2023 World Championship, and cut short its streak of four consecutive wins against a rival that choked him as Sergio Scariolo predicted the day before.

Classified for the second phase of the road to the World Cup, Spain offered its worst version in a bad afternoon plagued by turnovers -two of them were key by Ferran Bassas against Rati Andronikashvili, the best of those by Ilias Zouros and erected as a national hero- , a poor percentage in the free throw -8/14, 57 percent- and the scarce resource of speed, his main weapon.

A triple by Darío Brizuela forced extra time (67-67) that was able to avoid the blur against Tornike Shengeila's spirited Georgia, Lenovo Tenerife veteran Giorgi Shermadini and nationalized Thaddus McFadden for a group without NBA players or Real Madrid or Barça , but had shown the potential to win, and even overwhelm, its rivals to date.

The points from Shermadini and Shengeila and the assists from McFadden gave Georgia an advantage (37-31) at the break, discontinuous as was Spain in its annotation and defensive work until the third quarter, where a series of 6-14 gave the command ( 43-45) to those of Scariolo before the final carousel of errors.

Ferran Bassas suffered a ball theft against Rati Andronikashvili that seemed like the sentence (67-64) with 35 seconds left until the wrist emerged from Brizuela's triple (67-67) and forced the extra time that gave hope to those of Scariolo to straighten out a bad afternoon.

Instead, 5 consecutive points from 'Rati', with another steal from the Spanish point guard Bassas, and a triple from McFadden ended up confirming the bad omens. Spain registered its first setback on its route to the World Cup, and next Thursday it has the opportunity to make up for it in its last match against Ukraine in Riga (Latvia), postponed at the time due to the war.

--RESULT: GEORGIA, 82 - SPAIN, 76 (37-31, at halftime).

--GEORGIA: Andronikashvili (17), McFadden (16), Sanadze (8), Shengelia (12), Shermadini (18) --cinco inicial--, Bakradze (-), Bekauri (5), Bokolishvili (-), Burjanadze (3) y Jintcharadze (3).

SPAIN: Bassas (10), Barreiro (-), Fernández (3), López-Aróstegui (14), Sima (2) -first five-, Brizuela (12), Colom (-), Díez (4), Guerra ( 10), Parra (11), Pradilla (6) and Saiz (4).

--PARTIALS: 15-14, 22-17, 7-16 and 23-20. Overtime: 15-9.

--REFEREES: Glisic (SRB), Vojinovic (MON) and Prpa (SRB). Eliminated for personal fouls Jintcharadze (min. 37).

--PAVILLION: Tbilisi Sports Palace.