The Canadian national basketball team lost against Germany today and finished its participation at the FIBA World Cup in China. The Germans defeated Nick Nurse’s boys with 82-76.
Following this loss, Team Canada finished this campaign at the 21st place, out of 32 teams, which could be labeled as a failure when compared the initial plans.
This World Cup should have been a breakthrough for the Canadian basketball, as many expected to see the best possible team heading for China. And in the beginning, it seemed that the majority of the NBA stars would play. But as time went by, one by one, they started canceling their assistance. Eventually, only Cory Joseph remained loyal to the team.
Today’s game against Germany was interesting and pretty exciting, with both sides having their moments of domination on the court. The teams played in waves, with massive oscillations. At first, Germany took the lead and was up five points at the end of the opening quarter, 17-12. Following that, Canada responded with a 20-10 run in the second, yet they couldn’t keep that pace until the break, and Germany once again had a small advantage, 36-33.
The third quarter was very fun to watch, as the fans saw true competitive basketball, with two leveled sides. It made the result leveled, before the final period, 56-56.
Nurse’s team had a blackout early in the fourth, allowing seven unanswered points to the rival, which eventually cost them dearly. Canada managed to tie the result at some moment, but the Germans had more concentration in the end and closed this contest in their favor.
Kyle Wiltjer had 18 points and was the top scorer of the Canadian team, while Khem Birch had another good game, with 15 points, and 9 boards.
On the other side, Dennis Schroeder posted 21 points, and was near a triple-double. OKC’s point guard had 10 rebounds and 9 assists. Maxi Kleber added 20 buckets.
Coach Nick Nurse wasn’t that disappointed with the way tournament ended, as he stated that his team gained valuable experience.
“I think we played some really good competition, it was a good experience for us playing Australia and Lithuania in the group, and then ended up playing Germany in this side of the pool as well,” Nurse said. “Three very highly, highly ranked teams, so it was good for us to get some good competition, thought we played some really good basketball.”
Many believed in winning a medal at this competition, while more realistic ones were aiming a place at the Olympics. Canada had to finish among the top two teams from the Americas, but it is obvious that this goal was also out of reach.
The Canadian team will now have to go through additional qualifications in order to get a ticket for Tokyo next year. Only this time, the opponents will be from all over the world. And there are already several strong teams waiting for that opportunity, like Lithuania, Slovenia, Brazil, Italy, etc.
The help of the NBA stars would be massive in this case, and Nick Nurse will have a challenging task ahead of him to persuade the superstars to join his side.
