Jordan Nwora with 33 points not enough for Nigeria against Germany
By Johnny Askounis at eurohoops.net / info@eurohoops.net
The game was tied 81-81 with six minutes left, but Germany finished strong for the 99-92victory on Wednesday.
Johannes Voigtmann highlighted a five-player double-digit scoring pack with 19 points and seven rebounds. Moritz Wagner had 17 points. Danilo Barthel got to 14 points with an impressive run down the stretch.
“We did our job,” noted Voigtmann, “The first half was maybe a little too high scoring for our taste, but after the first four minutes in the third quarter we came together and we stepped up defensively.”
Germany scoring 99 points set a new national team record in the Olympic Games. The team coached by Henrik Rodl made it to 1-1 in Group B. The last preliminary round fixture follows Saturday versus Australia.
Jordan Nwora logged a game-high 33 points for the losing side. He connected seven threes in a total of 13/20 field goals. However, Nigeria went down to 0-2. The quarterfinals bid hanging by a string will meet its conclusion in three days with Italy coming up.
“Our main identity is we felt like we were a good defensive team coming into this tournament and our guys had done a tremendous job on that side of the ball. But it’s going to be tough to beat anybody when you don’t defend,” pointed out head coach Mike Brown, “We did not do a good job defending, 47 percent from the three-point line, on top of that you have 23 free throws.”
Photo Credit: FIBA.BASKETBALL
