Germany

Guard Johannas Herber: "We needed this win, we all played together. Sometimes things go your way when you work hard, you get your reward. I feel today I got my reward for the hard work I put in. I made a few shots which helped my confidence and the team's confidence."

On how Italy played: "Our defense was very good but you could definitely tell their offense was stalling at times. But our defense was much better than in the past couple of games."

On winning despite Dirk Nowitzki struggling: "It's encouraging. We need everyone to perform at their best level. We got that tonight and we need to keep doing that."

Looking ahead to Germany's quarter-final game against Spain: "We're just going to enjoy this one tonight and then we'll think about Spain."

Coach Dirk Bauermann: "We're extremely happy that we qualified to the quarter-finals against a very good Italian team. I was very proud how we bounced back against Slovenia but I knew we had that type of character, to re-group after such a bad loss."

"It wasn't a pretty game, both teams played great defense, and it was a tough group."

"Herber played a great game. He did a great job, on both ends, and fought hard. Its' good to see we can beat a team like Italy even in a night Dirk Nowitzki doesn't have a superstar performance."

"When you're in sports and play in this level you love and enjoy the challenge of this game. For me there's no bigger challenge in this tournament than facing Spain – world champions that host the event."

"We'll try to play at least as well defensively as we did tonight. They have a great coach and a great team, but in 40 minutes everything is possible. We're not afraid of anybody, but respect them. We'll try to win this game."

Italy

Marco Belinelli: "It's a big disappointment for us. Rebounds have been a problem for us throughout the tournament. I think we lost this game because of that. We gave them more chances to score. My aim coming into this tournament was bringing Italy to the last eight. But I was unable to accomplish that so it's very frustrating."

Coach Carlo Recalcati: "We suffered in every game under the basket. Our opponent took more rebounds than us but today it was worst than all the other games. We allowed them 23 rebounds more than us, and like that it's very difficult to win the game. The key was the rebounds and we didn't know to work in the right way to prevent that."