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USA Basketball couldn't slow down hot-shooting Greece.
(Garrett Ellwood/NBAE/Getty Images) USA Upset By Greece SAITAMA, Japan, Sept. 1 -- After jumping out to a six-point first-quarter lead, USA Basketball seemed headed toward the gold medal game. But Greece had other ideas, as it dominated the middle two quarters to seize control of Friday's 101-95 upset victory at the FIBA World Championship. Greece outscored Team USA by 10 in the second quarter and eight in the third and led by as many as 14. "We didn't make the right adjustments," USA center Chris Bosh said. "They ran the same play. We made it easy for them." Greece, which was 35-of-56 from the field, including nine 3-pointers, withstood a furious fourth-quarter rally from Team USA. LeBron James' dunk with 15.3 seconds left in the game trimmed the deficit to four at 99-95, but it would be the last points scored for Team USA, which suffered its first loss of the tournament. Carmelo Anthony scored a game-high 27 points, Dwyane Wade had 19 and James scored 17 for USA Basketball, which led by as many as 12 points in the second quarter. Vasileios Spanoulis fired in 22 points and Theodoros Papaloukas handed out 12 assists for Greece. "To lose any game is a shock to us," Anthony said. "We came in with the mentality to win the game and the gold medal." Greece, which is now 8-0 at the World Championship, will play Spain in the finals on Sunday at 6:30 a.m. ET on ESPN2, while Team USA will play Argentina in the third-place game on Saturday. "It wasn’t what we had planned," Team USA's Antawn Jamison said. "It’s going to be interesting. Hopefully we can stay positive and do the things we need to do in order to be successful. We knew this was a three-year commitment no matter if we won or lost. The only difference now is that instead of being together for a week next summer, we have to go through another tournament, but that’s the price you have to play when you don’t come out and win. We just have to keep our heads up high and go out there and be ready for the next game and next summer." |
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