Tokyo 2020 Wheelchair Basketball: Men's Semi-Final Day Round-Up
Pedal to the medal
Every day throughout the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, I will be bringing you a round-up of the goings-on in the Wheelchair Basketball event. My Bench Units co-host, James MacSorley, is actually competing in the Paralympics and so has better things to do than write up details of the games.
As you may know, the Tokyo Paralympics are taking place in Tokyo. Tokyo is 8 hours ahead of the UK, so some of the games are happening in the dead of the night for me.
I’m making it my mission to watch as many of the games as I can so I can do the best possible write-ups here. If I don’t get the chance to watch a game, I’ll state that up front and my review will be based on the stats, plus any educated guesses I might have, or anything that sounds plausible enough that I can say I heard it from James and blame him if it’s incorrect. I promise I’m not biased for or against any teams.
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Let’s get into it…
7/8 Playoff: Germany 68 - 56 Canada (Men)
4:30am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: Germany by 11
After an up-and-down ride following the opening days of the tournament, Germany rediscovered their winning formula just in time to lock up 7th place.
Legitimate scoring threat from four of their five starters and enough three-point attempts to make the opponent worry about that area of the floor. That’s what’s got it done in Germany’s wins out in Tokyo, and they brought more of it today than Canada could match.
Alex Halouski (20 points), Thomas Bohme (18), Andre Bienek (17) and Nico Dreimuller (10) were too much for a Canadian team that’s relied predominantly on two players for offensive production.
One of those players was on the floor for only 18 minutes. Patrick Anderson put up just 6 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists in Canada’s closing performance. I didn’t really think about it until the game was ending, but him playing such a small role seemed odd considering that it could be his last game ever on the Paralympic stage. I don’t know if Pat playing enough to give Canada a more realistic shot at finishing 7th is something he’d be particularly interested in but, if this is his last Games, it feels a bit surreal to see him go out in such a muted way.
Germany break their world-level competition streak of finishing lower at each major competition (shout-out to Mendel for a great fact), as they finish one place higher than their Rio 2016 effort.
For Canada, who knows what’s next. They’ve got some good talent, would be good to see some of those guys in professional leagues going forward.
5/6 Playoff: Canada 68 - 49 Japan (Women)
7am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: Canada by 17
Canada’s depth of scoring options showed up at a good time. In a game where neither Arinn Young (8 points on 12 shots) nor Kady Dandeneau (14 points off the bench) had their best individual performances, Rosalie Lalonde stepped up and put in 20 points to lead the way. They also got 13 from veteran Cindy Ouellet.
Japan got 20 points from Chihiro Kitada, but didn’t have the horses to keep up with Canada’s balanced scoring. They shot only 31% to Canada’s 55%, and were outrebounded 28-47. Game.
Canada finish in a respectable 5th place in what’s been a competitive women’s tournament. While they’re clearly better than Japan, I think they’ve also shown that they’re at least a half a tier below the teams that will be competing for the medals. What their route is in terms of closing that gap will be interesting to see.
SF1: Spain 52 - 66 USA (Men)
10:15am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: Spain by 4
So the lesson here is to always predict one game to finish with a differential of 14.
At one point during the 14-15 first quarter, I texted James saying “Spain might actually do this”. It was game-day for him, so I didn’t expect him to be free enough or bored enough to reply. As the second quarter wore on, I began to hope that he would never see it, or at least not soon enough after that he could remember any of the details of the game.
After a first quarter in which Spain had leaned hard on their interior advantage, the USA decided that they weren’t going to tolerate that for at least 10 minutes. The pressing unit put the clamps on Spain as a whole, holding them to 8 points while pouring in 24 points of their own.
When the USA put together spurts like this, I imagine anyone who’s up next to face them is watching the game and sharing a silent but very palpable “oh crap”.
After myself and Mendel talked about how Brian Bell wasn’t being maximised, he’s dropped consecutive 20-point games on over 60% shooting. Guess we’ve fixed him. He can thank us however he so wishes.
The Americans more or less made sure that Asier played the entire game in a straightjacket, with the heartbeat of the Spanish offense being turned purely into a facilitator (15 assists, 6 turnovers). The full-court defense negated Spain’s size advantage and Jordi Ruiz, their most reliable non-Asier creator, was hounded into an inefficient 6/18 shooting game by multiple defenders.
Spain’s first defeat of the tournament will see them headed to the bronze medal game, while the USA find themselves one win away from a successful defense of the Paralympic championship.
The USA have been good, but I don’t think they’ve been the force of nature they were in Rio. In 2016, every single game they played had a sense of inevitability to it that you couldn’t really talk yourself out of. As good as they’ve been this tournament, I’ve felt like various teams have had a chance against them. Staying at the top is always harder than reaching the top, but it feels ambitious to bet against them now.
SF2: Japan 79 - 68 Great Britain (Men)
12:45pm UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: GB by 7
Yo.
Me and James talked about it. Me and Mendel talked about it. Our projected dark-horse of the tournament has officially reached “shocked the world” territory.
Japan have clearly been in the lab during their time in a centralised programme, but I think this might be more than even they expected. If centralisation was guaranteed to work this well, most national teams wouldn’t let the players out of their sight.
GB came out on fire, riding some hot shooting from Abdi Jama (10 points) to a 15-23 lead. It was a promising start to a team that must have at least felt a little bit like they dodged a bullet when they avoided Australia in the semi-final.
I don’t know what it is about the Japanese defense, but it seems to just wear teams down as the game goes on. After losing the first quarter, Japan won every quarter after that (18-13, 19-12, 27-20). Maybe it’s a fatigue issue from playing 40 minutes against a lethal defensive team but, the further into the game they got, the less answers GB seemed to have.
Renshi Chokai was his usual combustible self, posting 20 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists while seeing to be in the middle of every single action on both ends. For three quarters, Japan got by-committee scoring contributions from Furusawa (9 points), Akita (9) Akaishi (8) and Fujimoto (8). Holding a 4-point lead as the final quarter rolled around, Japan made the decision to hand the game over to the closer.
Hiro Kozai continued his assault on fourth quarters everywhere, as he dropped in 11 Q4 points and engineered quality looks for Japan on almost every possession. The final pool game against Turkey featured a Kozai dagger, the quarter-final against Australia featured a Kozai dagger, but this one was more of a steady rampage.
As they have done all tournament, GB stayed in the game on the back of offensive creation from Gaz Choudhry (26 pts/6 reb/11 ast) and Gregg Warburton (14 pts/6 ast), and some huge inside finishes from Lee Manning (15 pts/7 reb). Even with 20 points of their own in the fourth quarter, they couldn’t keep Japan out of transition when the game came down to getting stops.
GB just couldn’t find the lineup to get themselves past Japan, who played maybe the best game in their programme’s history on one of their biggest-ever stages.
Japan move on to play the USA in their first-ever Paralympic final, and will be seeking a third straight upset over a team that would be favoured on paper. Don’t put anything past them at this point.
GB will compete for a second straight bronze as they go up against an old nemesis in Spain.
Up Tomorrow… Women’s Medals Day!
Borrowing an old Bench Units gimmick that myself and Ben Fox (also in Tokyo - really need some colleagues who aren’t too good for me) used for the World Championships in 2018, I’m going to list out tomorrow’s schedule and my predictions for the results, based on almost nothing at all.
6:15am - Men’s 5/6 Playoff - Turkey vs Australia - Australia by 9
9:45am - Women’s Bronze Medal Game - Germany vs USA - USA by 12
12:30pm - Women’s Gold Medal Game - Netherlands vs China - China by 5
Seeing teams make it to the medal games has been a rollercoaster. If I can make it through the medal games without having a breakdown then be sure to check back for the round-up!