ESP/SLO - Spain romp, Slovenia eying top six

KAUNAS (Eurobasket) – Juan Carlos Navarro has assured Spain of the first Semi Final spot at EuroBasket, hitting 17 third quarter points to help his team to a comfortable 86-64 victory over Slovenia.

With the game evenly poised at the half, Scariolo put his players in a two-three zone and they forced the Bozidar Maljkovic’s side to turn the ball over eight times, leading to 12 Spanish points.

Incidentally the win now assures that Spain at worse will have to make their bid for the Olympics via the qualifying tournament while Slovenia now face a must win game over the loser of Wednesday’s second Quarter Final to keep their dream of going to the Olympics for the first time alive.

A top two finish for defending champions would see Spain seal a spot for London.

Following a lackluster start that saw Slovenia go into the first quarter break leading by seven on the back of as many second-chance points, Spain lifted their defensive efforts in the second quarter, restricting the Slovenes to just eight points, as they took the lead for the first time in the game to be leading 35-31 at the break.

As the Slovenians struggled to cope with the pressure, Navarro cut loose in third quarter, turning the game into one way traffic. He would end the night with a game-high 26 points, while Pau Gasol would finish with a 19 point, 16 rebound double-double.

But shooting 3-from-5 from beyond the arc in the third quarter, Navarro would all but assure his team of a spot in the final four as they took a 26 point into the final quarter.

Navarro would play no further part in the remainder of the game while interestingly Slovenian Head Coach Bozidar Maljkovic resisted resting his top players over the final ten minutes, even with tomorrow’s must-win game to keep their Olympic dream alive now less than 24 hours away.

"It's going to be a big game for us," Slovenia's Goran Dragic told FIBA.

"Hopefully then we will go to the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament.

"We're waiting to see who our opponent (for Thursday) will be, we have to play today like the first two quarters."

"It will be easy to pick ourselves up. We just need to try and play as hard as possible," added dragic, who led Slovenia with 14 points.

In spite of the large margin of victory, Spain, who face the winner of Wednesday’s second game between hosts Lithuania and FYR of Macedonia,  are not getting carried away.

“We’re very happy to be in the Semi Finals. We had a very bad first half, but we played much better in the second half and that’s how we won the game," said Navarro.

“We have one day to rest now and that’s a good thing because we want and need to be as ready as possible for the very important Semi Finals.”

Spain lost Jose Calderon, their point guard, to a third-quarter injury.

"He twisted his ankle,” Spain coach Sergio Scariolo said.

“It doesn't look that bad but when you play in 48 hours, a small injury can matter."

Despite limping of the court with an injured ankle, Spanish Head Coach Sergio Scariolo believes Jose Calderon should be fine looking ahead to their impending Semi Final on Saturday.

FIBA