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The defense is the basis of everything in basketball, something we sometimes forget in the era of Steph Curry and the drunkenness of triples in which any NBA game has become. Defense is the part of the game that can best be maintained, with training and work and concentration, while the attack is much more subject to the ups and downs of that so steamy called "success." The Spanish team has almost always defended well with Sergio Scariolo , but he has understood before anyone else that this year it would have to be done even better after the loss, definitive or temporary, of so many senior veterans. The windows were certainly useful in that regard, a learning of new basketball with fewer human resources.

The defense owes Spain its six consecutive victories and meet in the semifinals after a great exhibition of individual, zone, mixed, pressure, aid ... But what gives us hopes now to prolong the streak that began based on pure suffering are the Offensive progress by a team that has removed the saying "a good attack is born of a good defense."

Seeing the Hernangómez brothers score 32 points, Rudy Fernández continue his climbing climb and Ricky Rubio greening hopes of a decade ago, when we saw him on the way to the superstar, it is very comforting. We do not have a portento now capable of winning any match on its own, as in certain moments - but frequent - of the past were Juan Carlos Navarro or Pau Gasol , but a solid rotation of nine men, of which five scored on Tuesday in doubles digits The team distributed 28 assists, which means that only four of their baskets were not preceded by a decisive pass, and that is a true barbarity.

Poland had little name, but it has been a tough opponent like the one that more. And it doesn't seem that whoever is going to be the opposite in the semifinals, Australia or the Czech Republic, excellent both, is going to be much harder than Poles or Serbs. So all hopes remain high, and the admiration for the growth in unison of this exceptional human and sports group assembled by Scariolo has once again climbed a couple of steps.

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  • basketball
  • Basketball World Cup 2019
  • Spanish Basketball Team

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