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...Now as for the on-topic basketball game :
Haven't yet re-watched it (but I'm just about to), yet my feelings from yesterday are that the Greek NT simply gave off its most imbalanced and nervous self. I'm not trying to conjure up excuses, but yesterday's performance does not reflect this team's actual AVERAGE potential. Which means that what they owe to themselves is to learn from this and get their shit together.
Considering excuses, or better yet, explanations, the Macedonian
[even though I'm not particularly happy with the term (since I do believe that the best-fitting / keeping-four-nations-happy one would be "Slavomacedonian") I'll stick to what the whole world has already gotten accustomed to] team played quite consistently - "they did their job" as any team is supposed to do in such circumstances. I actually enjoyed their "nerve" and focus, even though I wished the GNT had beaten the crap out of their

. I haven't watched their game against Croatia, but it seemed liked they more or less are aware of what they're doing there. Plus I didn't witness some kind of "nationalistic" feelings to be pumping up their game. Which is respectful as it is. All in all, they played a good game, considering, which fulfilled their expectations.
Truth also is, while the GNT was in an
unlucky streak yesterday, the MNT was lucky enough to have several successful long distance shots.
Their American point guard was consistent, passionate and insisting enough to dismantle all greek expectations considering made baskets, even though he should have gotten discouraged by the 1st half's defense on him.
To put an end to the "excuses" for the GNT, I'd also add that in certain moments of the game, especially in the 4th period, the MNT players didn't quite get calls by the refs as they maybe should have. And they were actually playing too strong a defense not to (please let nobody start with "ah the Greeks, whenever they lose there's always bad referee calls involved" : I do not blame the referees for the GNT's loss/the MNT's win, I already stated what the key points to the outcome were - it's just that for a certain duration, the calls against the GNT and in favor of the macedonian one, were discouraging enough for the attempted desperate comeback of the GNT. I'm talking about calls that don't compensate for either the GNT's lost of focus or the clutch performance of the MNT considering the end victor, but for ones that at least were responsible for a gap that nearly reached a 20p difference).
In conclusion : it has always been that the GNT were a psychology-based one. The difference, up to now, was that there usually emerged a "Greek hero" right out of ancient mythology references. Papaloukas, Diamantidis, Spanoulis, and a handful of "minor" others that would initiate (or fulfill) a victorious comeback. Such a "hero", seems to be absent nowadays. It's not like there are none, considering skills (Papanikolaou, Bramos, Calathes, Ksanthopoulos and especially Vasiliadis do have such proven skills as players in their clubs). MAYBE it's because this team is so fresh - maybe it's cause they don't blend together as well as they should/could. Maybe the all-new coach has his share in it as well. The thing is that nobody should either condemn this team or have great expectations. Especially since yesterday's game was by far one of it's worst and unlucky one.
And as for the MNT, I wholeheartedly wish that they keep giving out the best in them and prove that their initial wins over theoretically unbeatable opponents were not circumstantial. Much like I enjoyed 2010 WC's march of the turkish national team (which was,,,TNT for real).
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