The dream was real for three rooms of Eurobasket’s end-to-16th game, but logic prevailed and Germany, the world champion, eliminated Portugal, winning 85-58 (17-12); (14-20); (21-19); (33-7).
The result does not show the difficulties felt by the Germans, who caught a monumental defensive display of the Orals, who reached the break to win by 32-31 and the entrance of the last period only lost by one point (52-51).
Suffice it to say that the 17 points marked by the Germans in the first fourth and the 14 in the second replaced the lowest scores of the year for a team that came to this game as the best attack, with an average of 105.8 (!!) points per game.
A disastrous partial fourth, which coincided with the biggest reckoning of the Germans in the three-point line, had a partial opening of 13-0 that resolved the meeting. By the way, in the last 10 minutes, after a game brushing perfection, the world champions were clearly imposed: 33-7.
If in the first 24 attempts to triple the Germans only hit once, from there they hit the sight and made six of the seven attempts.
Nehemiah Queta took over the team’s lead and finished the game with a double-double of 18 points and 11 hits, but the second best Luso scorer was Trante Williams with only eight points, which brought together three hits and two assists.
On the Germans’ side there were five players to exceed the dozen points, especially Franz Wagner and Dennis Schroder, two players in the NBA and scored 16 points each.
