With the Russian team everything is in order
In the matches of the first group round of the World Cup, Russian basketball players showed their best side - taking into account tremendous personnel problems, two wins in three meetings, a ticket to the second stage of the world championship and a guarantee of participation in the Tokyo Olympics qualification tournament next summer are a solid result. With Alexei Shved, Dmitry Khvostov, Dmitry Kulagin, Timofey Mozgov and other leaders in the team, Sergei Bazarevich’s team would probably not have suffered terribly unruly (and sometimes frankly stupid) Nigerians, having “-8” in the middle of the final quarter, and would have easily defeated South Korean team, significantly inferior to domestic performers in the class.
But the difficulties that the Russians faced during the two starting matches of the world championship will be forgotten very soon, and their positive outcome will remain in history - and will come in handy in 2020, when the team tries to return to the number of participants in the Games after an eight-year break. Therefore, even if a team fails to cling to a place in the quarterfinals (and Bazarevich’s team has to fight with the Poles and Venezuelans for it), a trip to China can already be considered successful: looking at the list of Russian basketball players who, for various reasons, did not reach China, the imagination didn’t draw one much more sad scenario than the second place in the group and the annoying defeat of Argentina in the competition.
Given the shortage of players, Bazarevich’s coaching staff managed to build a more or less stable structure from a dedicated game on the defensive, where everyone who went to the field worked to the limit of their own abilities, the colossal experience of veterans and the energy of young defenders, for whom the current World Cup is a great opportunity to make a breakthrough. This applies to Mikhail Kulagin, who has sat up at the far end of the CSKA bench, no less than to Grigory Motovilov and Andrei Sopin.
In the attack, of course, everything was quite far from the ideal demonstrated by the trio of Khvostov-Swede-Kulagin at the European Championship two years ago, but Andrei Zubkov as a kind of free artist turned out to be a cool decision. Without his 13.7 points on average per game, which became the best result in the Russian team in the first group round, the situation would have been much worse.
Using wide rotation, the mentor of the domestic team achieved maximum efficiency from all to a single performer in her application for certain segments of matches, and this is already good. The eyes of a sophisticated fan are unlikely to be impressed by the statistical indicators of Kulagin - the youngest (26.9% of the scoring per game), Motovilov (2.3 losses on average per game with only 12.5 minutes on the court), Sergey Karasev (the worst score in the team “-4.7” after three matches) and even Andrei Vorontsevich, who at some point stopped flying from a long distance (a total of 2 out of 12 in matches with Korea and Argentina).
But everyone who did not spare six hours of life to watch the national team's bouts will easily remember how Mikhail, with his three-pointer, saved her from the jerk in the opening, the Khimki newcomer stopped the bold attempt of the Korean comeback, and the three-time Euroleague champion in CSKA knocked out Nigeria , together with Zubkov dragging partners to a decisive, as it turned out, victory.
This diversity, smoothly turning into unpredictability, is the main danger of the Russian team for its next rivals - also not the most stable and definitely not starry. By blocking the oxygen to Pole Mateusz Ponitka (who, by the way, should help Zenit successfully debut in the Euroleague in the upcoming club season) and without giving his shield to Venezuelans, who unexpectedly lead among all the participants in the world championship in the number of rebounds in attack, domestic basketball players will probably wedge themselves into the fight for reaching the playoffs. Whatever one may say, the Russians were lucky with the draw and the net: their group I seems to be the weakest among all those that formed in the second stage of the World Cup, and tournament layouts from the wards of Bazarevich do not require epic feats like victory over the USA or Serbia.
The increase in the number of participants did not benefit the World Cup
It was not difficult for the FIBA top leadership to argue the decision to expand the geography of the championship of the planet with the globalization of basketball and the growth of interest in it on all continents - and this is true. But the tournament in China shows that there are no three dozen competitive national teams in the world yet. Even despite the widespread use by nominal outsiders of naturalized performers and weakened compositions of most of the usual giants, who did not count the mass of injured stars, “refuseniks” and eminent veterans who decided to give way to promising young people.
Suffice it to say that not one of the 11 African and Asian teams (including the hosts of the Chinese tournament, who were expected to at least enter the second round from the middle pool A with Poland, Venezuela and Côte d'Ivoire) has overcome the barrier of the first group stage. But it was precisely these regions that got five out of eight additional quotas for the World Cup.
12 out of 16 lucky starting rounds were already decided based on the results of two rounds, which also indicates the level of competition, while at the same time high-quality and intriguing fights that held the attention of the audience until the last second of playing time can easily be counted on the fingers of one hand. The defeats with a difference of 20-30 points became the norm, and the Serbs reached the top 16 with the indecent difference of the scored and missed points “+120”.
Finally, the fans simply didn’t have enough sensational results - after all, the audience loves the most and remembers the stories about how the next brave David deals with the underestimated Goliath. The “killing” of their own team by German defender Dennis Schroeder, who plays at the club level in the NBA for the “Oklahoma City Thunder”, should not be attributed to such.
Firstly, because sending the strong European squad to the consolation tournament for 17-32 places, the Dominican Republic is not an accidental guest at someone else's holiday of life (at the previous World Championships, held in 2014 in Spain, the islanders played in the playoffs). Secondly, the playmaker himself, who oiled absolutely all his throws from the game in the fourth quarter of the key World Cup match for Germany, has never been known as an example of stability and reliability in international matches.
It was only on the final day of the first group round that the sensation of total predictability of what was happening was slightly diluted with the local triumph of Brazilian super veterans Anderson Varezhao and Leandro Barbosa in the battle with Greece, led by the current NBA MVP, Yannis Adetokunbo (both teams went further, but Latinos won the first place in the Quartet F), the Czechs destroyed.
One of the main surprises of the European part of the qualification with a plus sign left behind the top 16 of the World Cup, traditionally strong Turkey, beating it with a margin of 15 points in the full-time confrontation, and without the Euroleague star Jan Vesela, who did not reach the Celestial Empire due to problems with health. The team played by Ronen Ginzburg made good use of their own trump cards, which were not so few - from the competent actions of Tomas Satoranski from Chicago Bulls to the number one position to the crazy 69% of the implementation of three-pointer by 35-year-old striker Blake Shilb. As a result, the second time in a row made its way into the Olympic qualification. What should be considered a tremendous success for the country, which eight years ago played in Division B on its continent.
The US team is vulnerable, and its competitors have a chance for gold
The Turkish basketball players’ fiasco in the fight against the Czech Republic can be explained not only by the power of Satoransky and the company, but also by the incredible disappointment that befell the wards of Ufuk Saridzh two days before the fatal defeat. The team, whose leaders at the world championship were Fenerbahce defender Melih Mahmutoglu, as well as forwards Chedi Osman and Ersan Ilyasova, who played across the ocean, only by their own stupidity did not inflict the first defeat in official matches of the US team since 2006, having missed four free throws in a row at the end of the meeting, the winner of which was determined in overtime.
The Americans were very close to failure in the first meeting with a worthy rival, confirming that in its current form - with only two participants in the last NBA All-Star Game - Greg Popovich’s team is considered the main favorite of the World Cup out of habit rather than due to the highest quality demonstrated basketball.
According to the bookmaker’s quotes, the star-striped team was almost overtaken by Serbia with its phenomenal attack, a very deep bench and a beautiful victory over Italy against 31 points of Sacramento Kings defender Boyan Bogdanovich. And Australia, with a balance of 3-0, emerged from a not-so-simple group with Canadians and Lithuanians, if necessary, will make every effort to repeat the trick two weeks ago, but within the framework of official competitions.
Now the forecast of the most authoritative American sports publication ESPN, which does not see Popovich’s wards even in the final of the world championship, no longer looks like a banal attempt to attract additional public attention to the tournament in the Middle Kingdom. The recent defeat from Australia in the control match and the miraculous salvation in the match with Turkey showed why the US is not particularly trusted even in the homeland.
It will be all the more interesting to watch the current champions in the next meeting. On Saturday, September 7, they will have to fight with the Greeks, who made it to the second round with a balance of 2-1 and have no choice but to put the bandwagon to the favorite, so that you don’t suddenly lose the playoffs at all.
Three years ago, in Rio de Janeiro, the US team was also completely unimpressed in the group round. Then the team surrendered the first half of Australia and barely took their feet in the meetings with Serbia and France, each of which won by a margin of just one three-point throw, after which it confidently won the third consecutive Olympic gold.
But in 2016, Kevin Durant, Paul George, Carmelo Anthony and Jimmy Butler were at the disposal of Mike Krzyszewski, and now Popovich has to rely only on Kembu Walker and Donovan Mitchell and to deal with the ongoing epidemic of injuries - damage has already been received directly in China quarterback Marcus Smart and forward Jason Tatum.
Therefore, it is becoming more and more difficult to believe in the miraculous transformation of Americans every day, and the question is whether someone will overthrow the star-striped from the throne here and now, before the start of the second group round of the World Cup is more relevant than ever.