15 September 2007

Marko Popovic scored 12 of his 15 points in the second half as a balanced Croatia booked their spot in next summer's pre-Olympic qualifying tournament by beating France 86-69 in the 5th-8th classification round of EuroBasket 2007.

The Croatians, who had lost their last four games since beating Spain in the preliminary round, will play the winner of Germany vs Slovenia on Sunday for fifth place.

		Tony Parker had 18 points for France but it was not enough.

France play the loser of that game in the game for seventh place - which means the final spot in the pre-Olympic event.

"We all knew our own role today. We showed a lot of character against France considering yesterday's defeat, which was really painful," said Popovic, referring to Croatia's 74-72 quarter-final loss to Lithuania on two missed foul shots with one second remaining.

"But against France we kept up the energy in the final minutes of the game. It's a big deal for us to have clinched this spot. That's why we came here. We knew what we came here for and we achieved it."

Zoran Planinic also scored 15 points while Nikola Prkacin had 14 points and Marko Banic and Stanko Barac each scored 12 points for the winners, who shot 56% from the field for the game.

France were led by Tony Parker's 18 points and Boris Diaw collected 11 points, five rebounds and five assists. But they shot only 41% from the field and forced Croatia into only nine turnovers.

"We know that tomorrow's game is the game for us. And we need to have everyone on the team motivated," said Diaw.

"It's difficult to know what happened today in the second half. We were late in reacting and we didnt apply that much pressure out there.We would have preferred to have won this game, but we must continue to work."

Early on, Croatia took advantage of a size difference in the paint with Prkacin and Barac helping Jasmin Repesa's team to a 17-7 lead with two minutes left in the first period.

The Croatians led 21-13 after one quarter as Prkacin scored eight points and Barac collected six points and six rebounds.

Trailing by 12 points - 25-13, Yakhouba Diawarra, Diaw and Yohann Sangare all hit three-pointers in a 13-1 surge to cut the deficit back down to 29-26. But an 18-5 Croatia run gave them a 47-31 lead at the break.

France opened the second half with the first 11 points and forced Croatia into four turnovers to trim the margin to 47-42.

Marko Popovic answered with three long bombs in spear-heading a 14-3 spurt for a 61-45 Croatia lead.

It was 61-50 after three periods.

Another Popovic three-pointer pushed the advantage to 68-52 with eight minutes to go. The French got as close as nine points with three minutes left. But Croatia went on a 6-0 run to re-establish a 15-point lead - 79-64 - and put the game to rest.  

15 September 2007

France

Coach Claude Bergeaud: "Congratulations to the Croatian team. We knew before the game they have a lot of talent, and they shoot the ball very well. We saw that they control the game and have balance between inside and outside game."

"Today the best team won. France wasn't in the level of the Croatian team. Nobody was able to stop Nikola Prkacin, and we decided to put more pressure on him. At the beginning we needed more energy to control the game. We weren't focused on some details, and we forgot the basics of basketball, which allowed them to score easy baskets."

Tariq Kirksay: "Just like every other game, we didn't play for 40 minutes and didn't put energy in the game like we should have. We still have one more game to reach our goal, so we got to take the game seriously. We'll have to play better than today. We're all professionals and we're suppose to represent our country and it's a shame and disappointing we didn't do that."

Croatia

Coach Jasmin Repesa: "Congratulations for my players for recovering in such a short time. It's very difficult to recover from a loss in the last seconds. Twice in the past - in EuroBasket 2001 and 2005 we fell apart and lost the key games after losing the quarter-finals, so I'm happy we recovered this time. We achieved the goal we came here with – to qualify to the qualifications of the Olympics, and I hope we'll make it with good preperation.

Forward Damir Markota: "I'm really happy we won the game. It was very difficult to recover from last night's game. It was a good game and I'm really happy. It was very hard to forget the game from yesterday. We came here to be in the Olympics qualifications so we wanted to play hard for that."

15 September 2007

France and Croatia may be down after losing in their quarter-final showdowns with Russia and Lithuania, respectively but a spot in the pre-Olympic tournament is up for grabs when they hook up Saturday in the 5th-8th classification round.

The winner advances to the tourney while the loser has one final chance to make the pre-Olympic event in the game for 7th place.

		Tariq Kirksay has scored in bunches for France and could be a key against Croatia.

Both France and Croatia missed free throws in the waning seconds which could have evened the game.

So, expect both teams to try to eventually pull away and put less pressure on themselves from the foul stripe.

Last Time Out: France lost to Russia 75-71 in the quarter-finals while Croatia fell to Lithuania 74-72.

Key Match-Up: Zoran Planinic vs Joseph Gomis - the Croatian had a great game against Lithuania but missed his two foul shots with one second remaining. Expect Planinic to be extra motivated against the French and will a size mis-match against Gomis - 1.97m to 1.80m. Florent Pietrus may move over and try to shot down the Tau Vitoria star.

X-Factor: Tariq Kirksay, the veteran American-born small forward has scored in double digits four times thus far - never in more than 24 minutes - and he's averaged 2.75 steals over the past four games. Those numbers could come in handy against Croatia.

Stats: France allowed Russia to hit 50% (8-of-16) of their three-pointers and they can't do that against a top shooting side like Croatia. The Croatians came into the Lithuania showdown hitting 77% of their foul shots but made just 8-of-19 (42%) from the stripe in the quarter-final.

Sounding Off: France forward Florent Pietrus: "The tournament is far from over. We still have a lot to play for with the bid in the pre-Olympic tournament still there for the taking. The loss against Russia has been digested and all of our attention is on this game."