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[1/2 Finals - Day 1] France - Spain

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[1/2 Finals - Day 1] France - Spain


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Collet blasted the refs on his press conference.

Well Pau did get calls that no-one else would get (or he would see in NBA, not even half) but they still had the game and everything in their hands. Collet made so many coaching mistakes, that he should be looking more in the mirror. The fact that you are up in the game vs a team that has a dude dropping 40 on you and you are still winning the game and end up losing it, says a lot about ineptitude by the coach and some of the players on the floor.
 
Collet blasted the refs on his press conference.

This lose is on him,first chose Diot over Huertel,then eat shit and call back Huertel,ofc he declines him Huertel is smart boy he is not retarded he organises game very well,with Huertel nothing of this would happen i belive french game would be much better organised,Collet should resign now
 
What a game!! All my body was shacking! But all the time I knew we got it, I trust in GASOL, and he assured they went to win. Just hesitated for a while after that Batum amazing three 16 second to finish 4rd quarter, more than a great shot!
Just can say! We are going to get the gold, that¡s the reason why GASOL came.
Dreaming with facing Lithuania. For 4 reasons, they are my second fav team. SABONIS is the president. His son is in the roster. And I want the 2003 revenge.

GASOL, the best in our history
 
Is Pau Gasol a pussy in terms of being unable to prosper in a physically tough game? Most probably, he is. And if some of Gobert's and Lauvergne's semi-fouls on him won't be whistled, then this game can easily have the different outcome cause it was Pau's ability to either draw sometimes dubious contact and, hence, to practive his free throw mastery or score in literally every possession which helped Spain to cut that sizeable French lead. No way, Pau Gasol is strong and tough even 'for Europe'. There are a lot of European big guys both in NBA and in Europe who are ten times more strong and physically tough than Gasol (I won't even start about all those non-European players in Europe who often prosper mostly due to their toughness and physical power, in that Olaseni Lawal manner). That's not even a point of rational discussion.

Is Gasol a basketball genius, a one-of-a-kind talent who is able to (almost) singlehandedly decide outcome of some consecutive games against elite opponents in international competitions? I think that this tournament dispelled all my previous doubts about it. He is a basketball genius.

This sort of performance finally outshined what Dirk did back in mid 2000s when his heroics allowed a decent yet nothing special German team to have some podium finishes. 35 y.o., tired (just take a look at his facial expressions late in the game, he was like a blown horse), being a go-to guy for his team playing heavy minutes each game, playing in a team coached by Scariolo - and he is able to do some sort of miracles on a serial basis!

It's not like Spain's win over France is a miracle in itself, I think that Spain has a better team (although its coaching and rotation really suck) but the way by which they got back in the game from -9 deficit due to wondrous Gasol playing in the latter half of the fourth quarter is miraculous. At those crucial minutes Spain kept on playing in extremely plain and simple (I would call it retarded if it won't work) manner - just try to give Gasol a ball in offense and then stand and watch in silent awe what he should do. But Pau delivered! A performance to be remembered for ages! And while all those Pekovics, Gortats, Kanters and others of that ilk are much stronger and tougher on a pure physical level, these NBA dumdums don't deserve even to polish the shoes for Pau.

He kept Spain afloat when it seemed that there was a little hope left for them. And if Spain would lose that overtime, then I think that Pau has a total moral right (maybe, even a duty) to beat both Scariolo and Rudy to death in a locker room. Chacho helped a lot with scoring, Llull with offensive organization and Claver with rebounding but nevertheless we can safely say that today's game was Pau's personal triumph. Hats off to him, ladies and gentlemen!

I don't like the way this Spanish team plays. Back in 2006 they have one of the greatest teams in the history of international basketball while right now they are as dependent on Gasol's individual heroics as Russian economy is on oil and gas exports. And it's not a good thing, it's their last resort. But nevertheless I'm really happy that this team makes it to the finals. They deserve it. Which also can be read as 'he deserves it'.

By the way, what about Longoria? Such an impressive performance by this clinical idiot (converting on just one free throw attempt out of four was that proverbial icing on a cake), once again he truly shined when FIBA basketball started :)

P.S. The discussion about 'toughness' results in lot of misunderstanding. Many people when speaking about 'tough' players mean the physically strong, imposing players who thrive in a game with a lot of contact and even some roughness allowed by the refs. That's where dominance of players of African descent (no matter American or Africa-born) is realy indisputable. Mental toughness which includes ability for staying mostly unaffected by some rough fouling from opposing side is a completely different thing, in many cases totally unrelated to physical toughness. Here there is no real advantage of white or black players as both races have their great share of 'tough guys' and chokers alike.

So it would be totally stupid to call John Stockton a physically tough player (he was a below average athlete who looked like a person living next door and not some premium level athlete when off the court) while he was certainly a mentally tough, gutsy player with winner mentality. Reggie was some sort of my favourite (pheew, it seems so strange to me now that I woke up 4 in the morning on Sundays just to watch some NBA game live on TV) and he espoused 'clutch' aspect of mental toughness like none other. And what a terrific shooter he was! Maybe, it's some sort of sentimental nostalgia but remembering those times I'm starting to feel that NBA wasn't really that shitty back when as it is nowadays.

P.P.S. I would also be really happy if Pau decides for playing some 2-3 seasons in Barca before retiring. It would be really great :)
 
Heurtel was badly missing , stupid move to cut him off in favor of DeColo,Parker or Diot , he was so great in the clutch situations last year, he had a pretty good season for Efes in Euroleague this past season , I don't understand that decision at all.
Heurtel is unstable, so you can never guess what would he do - save your ass or bury you deep into the mud - when you're trusting him in the clutch moments. Yet I also don't get why he didn't get the call from Collet. I doubt if he would fare better than de Colo (who had a good tournament overall being the best player for this French team) but at least he would provide some additional backcourt variants to use, including late in the game situations, and while I also won't took Westermann off the bench to substitute choking Parker but playing a backcourt duo Heurtel - de Colo in endings like this makes much more sense.
 
What huge muscles has to do with toughness?

As a person who watched countless Jazz games with Stockton I can say he was one of the toughest SOBs in the NBA ever. Had to be with Sloan. Stockton was quite muscular as well. The amount of screens he would set on huge 6'10" guys was amazing. I think some people are confusing him with Steve Nash or something.
 
As a person who watched countless Jazz games with Stockton I can say he was one of the toughest SOBs in the NBA ever. Had to be with Sloan. Stockton was quite muscular as well. The amount of screens he would set on huge 6'10" guys was amazing.

That whole team was extremely tough and played very physical basketball and that is why they had close games with Chicago. Jordan-Pippen-Rodman is so tough to play with 48 minutes against in terms of physicality, but Jazz did it much better than others.
 
As a person who watched countless Jazz games with Stockton I can say he was one of the toughest SOBs in the NBA ever. Had to be with Sloan. Stockton was quite muscular as well. The amount of screens he would set on huge 6'10" guys was amazing. I think some people are confusing him with Steve Nash or something.
One of the toughest SOB? No doubt about that. Quite muscular? Meh, I just don't get it, athleticism standards were significantly lower back then but nevertheless I can't quite comprehend how you can view Stockton as quite muscular or physically strong. I mean, do you really want to call this guy (see http://www.slamdunk.ru/images/j/john-stockton.jpg) quite muscular? Most of the time he hadn't shied away from the contact and played excellent D on much more physically strong guys but it was mostly due to his unparalleled work ethics, tenacity, bulldog's grip and fighting spirit.

Don't get me wrong, I liked Stockton an awful lot. Most probably, he's my all-time favourite PG from NBA. His pnrs with The Mailman were such a pleasure to watch. So delusively simple yet so highly effective. Yet, from my point of view, he played very hard-nosed defense but he was not a great athlete by any means.
 
I think the two toughest little guys I ever saw were Isiah Thomas and Allen Iverson.
 
Toughness is a solely mental attribute when it comes to basketball in my book.I don't give a flying fuck about body strength,power etc.

Terrorizer,solid post overall(although you still attention-whoring like a mofo like you always do in some snippets;)) and while I don't really want to shit all over the Spanish parade tonight(because what we watched was fucking God-lite by Gasol),I really feel kind of obligated to say this:

Dirk is one refs screwjob(biggest in NBA finals fucking EVER) and being born 200 km ''wester'' than he did,away from being a top10 player of all time in the whole planet.I'm sick in the head watching every random motherfucker penalize or underappreciate or compare the God of all Gods to inferior competition because he was cursed to play with scrubs during his entire FIBA career or because a trio of dickless sob's decided 9 years ago to 3-handledly take away what was his property.
And every basketball fan/NBA fan with a double digit IQ knows what would have happened in 2007 if Salvatore,Danny Crawford and co just do they job correctly back in June of 2006.

Rant over.On to the next rum.

ps:I know the subject you're discussing is entirely different from what I'm saying,but since you talked about Dirk,I just wanted to let my frustration out after watching what Germany NT looked like for 15 fucking years and what other European greats accomplished with their respective national teams during the same timespan.
Peace.
 
Toughness is a solely mental attribute when it comes to basketball in my book.I don't give a flying fuck about body strength,power etc.

Terrorizer,solid post overall(although you still attention-whoring like a mofo like you always do in some snippets;)) and while I don't really want to shit all over the Spanish parade tonight(because what we watched was fucking God-lite by Gasol),I really feel kind of obligated to say this:

Dirk is one refs screwjob(biggest in NBA finals fucking EVER) and being born 200 km ''wester'' than he did,away from being a top10 player of all time in the whole planet.I'm sick in the head watching every random motherfucker penalize or underappreciate or compare the God of all Gods to inferior competition because he was cursed to play with scrubs during his entire FIBA career or because a trio of dickless sob's decided 9 years ago to 3-handledly take away what was his property.
And every basketball fan/NBA fan with a double digit IQ knows what would have happened in 2007 if Salvatore,Danny Crawford and co just do they job correctly back in June of 2006.

Rant over.On to the next rum.

ps:I know the subject you're discussing is entirely different from what I'm saying,but since you talked about Dirk,I just wanted to let my frustration out after watching what Germany NT looked like for 15 fucking years and what other European greats accomplished with their respective national teams during the same timespan.
Peace.

Dirk is the greatest European player of all time in my opinion as well. And I can't really argue with the awful officiating, but when you lose 4 games in a row including the last one on your home court you have to take your share of the blame.
 
Dirk is the greatest European player of all time in my opinion as well. And I can't really argue with the awful officiating, but when you lose 4 games in a row including the last one on your home court you have to take your share of the blame.

The problem is that momentum is huge in basketball,especially when you combine it with plenty of ref help.Recall that Game 3 in Miami back then or the ref treatment Wade enjoyed during all the 4 last games and you'll see that it was nearly impossible for a 1man squad to overcome that.
The backdoor sweep was the logical result of all that zebra bullshit.
NBA turned a ridiculous comfortable 0-3 lead in favor of Dallas in to 1-2 with the old format of 2-3-2 still in place at the time.9 years later still no team has ever come back from a 0-3 deficit in the history of the NBA playoffs and that says it all really.
We all know sweeps have never been good for TV ratings and all the money that comes as a package with them,but that was such a career-altering moment for an All-time great that it will never be forgotten.

Anyway,this still pains me like it was yesterday,so I'm not really feeling like discuss it furthermore.It was just a rant by me because Dirk's name was involved in this thread(directly or indirectly by anyone talking about who is the greatest ever etc.)
 
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You don't understand what I said. I know '' athletism'', '' toughness'' and '' strength'' different things but you have to admit that there is strict relation with toughness and strength. You can be tough without impressive muscles but you can never be Lebron, Shaq, Howard, Malone or Barkley without those muscles and physichal strenght. You can compansate your weakness with your brain and skills but it's not enough to be Shaq, just like this :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUifPfjXXXM

Some people understand athletism very primitively. John Stockton was pure athlet? If you think that only big muscles shows athletism when yes. In that case marathon runners are pure athlets. And tell me, who is tougher - matathon runner or basketball player?John Stockton had IRON body. He was putting screens for Malone, Ostertag and so on. Was regularly hit by guys who were 25cm bigger and weighted 30-40kg more when him. And NOTHING. Chicago was regularly crying about his elbows, they created movie about it. He played 1504 games of 1526 possible in FUCK'N 19 SEASONS(!!!). Last season (beeing 40 years old guard) he had these stats: 27.7min / 48.3%FG / 36.3%3PT / 82.6%FT / 2.5REB / 7.7AS / 1.7Steal / 0.2BLOCK / 10.8PTS.
40 years old guard who played almost every game in 19 years... That's not athletism? Remember how Shaq looked in his last seasons?

I am talking about the debates after 2014 WC. Nearly all members were blaming Afro-Am players on being '' dumb but athletic and strong motherf.uckers'' with some racist ideas.

That's bullshit - there are stupid black players and there are stupid white players (hello to Milicic).

It seems that they changed their minds and starts to count white ''tough'' guys and ignore their ''claims''. Skills and being smart is very important to be the one of greatest players but you have to own some physichal gifts near those to be like Shaq, Lebron, Carmelo or prime Howard. For Gasol, he is also gifted with long arms and height but he has %100 on skills and ''brain''.

Not truth. Shaq, Lebron, yes they are tough. To call Carmelo and Howard (prime) tough is nonsense. What toughness did you find in their game?

For Gobert's statement, I can say that the greatest players like Gasol know how to get ft line. The truth is that the refs have more tolerance to superstars like Nowitzki, Parker,in the past Sabonis, Djordjevic... This is the nature of bball. Spain deserved the victory.

Maybye i saw different game - last 2 minutes of 4th quater referees didn't call few clear Gober fouls on Gasol. And a team what can't finish 4 atacks in the row when oponent starts to play zone(not very good zone) should look at the mirror.
 
We'll remember this game for Gasol's heroics.In fact Slovenia's semi between the same teams 2 years ago was higher quality.France is on the decline as well.Parker is done(well done idiot Collet,what a great idea to cut Heurteul),Diaw cant stop eating mcDonalds and Batum had his worst tournament with NT.Refs helped Spain,if you're gonan call every single time Lauvergne or Gobert tried to deny Pau post position you got to call the obvious foul where Pau threw Lauvergne on the ground just before his dunk.Instead of -1 and 2 free throws for France it was -3 with 15 seconds left.That was really crucial.

no, that wasnt a foul. video shows clearly, almoust no contact
https://twitter.com/bballbreakdown/status/644617485937848320
 
no, that wasnt a foul. video shows clearly, almoust no contact
https://twitter.com/bballbreakdown/status/644617485937848320

If someone thinks that is a foul he is simply blind. Lauvergne was trying to flop, but did it very unsuccessfully. Jon_Koncak wrote so many nonsences about referees in this championship that i stoped reading his posts about it.
Watched this game again this morning - French team cries about refeering, "not letting to touch Gasol" looks even more phatetic when yesterday. They should better talk about nonexisting fouls referees were giving to Rayes.
 
Rayes fouls were complete nonsense. I was watching and couldnt believe the whistles.
 
Gobert is awful on both ends. Grandpa Pau taught him a lesson, or 40 lessons.
 
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