Tokyo 2020 Wheelchair Basketball: Day 4 Round-Up
And so begins the age-old dance of bluffing, second-guessing and general posturing for the best quarter-final matchup.
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…
Turkey 61 - 79 Spain (Men)
1am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: Spain by 9
Size matters.
We all do our best to tell ourselves otherwise, but you always end up stumbling across a video on the internet that confirms it. In today’s case, that was this game between Turkey and Spain.
Turkey are by no means small. Their starting unit is four guys who are either smaller forwards or bigger wings, and their low-pointer is an absolute cinderblock. The problem is, having a good spread of size across the board can only do so much when you come up against one giant, let alone a team with multiple of them. Maybe they’ll bring the rule in at some point, but wheelchair basketball doesn’t allow players to climb on each other’s shoulders to contest shots and rebounds. Until that rule is in place, they could replay this game as many times as they wanted and Spain would repeatedly crush Turkey in any size-related aspects of the game.
Spain used their size to:
Play hard L-shape defense in the mid-range without ever giving up any ground to Turkey’s would-be-rollers
Intercept interior passes all, and smother shots when the passes did get through
Absolutely flat-out maul Turkey on the backboards, more than doubling their rebounding total (47 to 22) and pulling down 21 (!) offensive boards
Ozgur Gurbulak had his usual performance, dropping 28 and hitting some shots under ridiculous pressure, but Turkey’s inside finishing off his passes was really hindered by Spain’s collective mass.
Spain are now 4-0, one win away from sweeping Group A. Japan up next for them
USA 41 - 42 China (Women)
1am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: USA by 16
Yesterday, I wrote this:
I guess the question at this point is whether China will be overmatched by teams with top-level offensive firepower (e.g. USA, Canada), or whether they’ll even be able to drag those teams into a rock fight. If they can do that, it’s anyone’s game.
I think I have my answer, and this might have been the most extreme example possible. China scored 7 points in the first half. That’s 0.35 points per minute, or half of a hundredth of a point per second. They won the game anyway, because they do the basketball equivalent of when you finally decide to stop swatting at that fly that’s buzzing around and just let it crawl on you. They also won the final quarter 14-21. Those numbers are double and triple, respectively, what China scored in the first half.
After a strong opening quarter (12-2), the USA could not get anything going in the middle two quarters of the game. The Chinese defense eroded them and had a real affect on Rose Hollermann, who’s often been the one to bail the USA out of tough situations. She was held to 6 points on only 9 shot attempts.
Zhang and Dai carried China offensively again, but it’s the team effort defensively that gets it done for them. They’ve now beaten the reining World Champs and Paralympics Champs in the group phase of the tournament. Watch out.
Australia 64 - 53 Germany (Men)
3:15am UK Time. Did not watch.
Yesterday’s prediction: Australia by 6
This felt like a massive one leading up to it. I say that, but there was no way my eyelids were cooperating enough for me to give it the attention it deserved.
These teams have kind of been running different races up to this point. Germany coming through with two notable and surprising results, a close loss to the USA and a solid win over GB, has forced everyone to pay attention. Australia, meanwhile, have chugged away and racked up wins over inferior teams. You can only beat the teams you play, but it’s probably fair to say Australia hadn’t really shown us what their ceiling was yet.
A double-digit win over a team suddenly claiming to be a contender is a relatively good indication.
Australia put a bounty on Thomas Bohme. After getting pretty much whatever he wanted in Germany’s first two games, Bohme was held to 11 points on 3/12 shooting, and Germany couldn’t fill in around him. Alex Halouski stepped up more in this game (13pts/6reb/8ast), and this is more like what they’ll need from him going forward, but it wasn’t enough with Bohme so limited.
The Aussies stuck to their preferred 1/3/3/3/4 points configuration for most of the game, with Bill Latham being their most effective big (17 pts/11 reb). Quiet game from Tom O’Neill-Thorne, who’s been a stud for the Aussies so far in the Paralympics. Similar shooting game to Bohme, getting 8 points on 3/12, which makes it all the more impressive that he posted a +19 while Bohme was at -17 for the game. +/- isn’t a perfect stat, but in games like this it gives a good idea of how able a team is to step up and make up for an underwhelming performance.
Algeria 8 - 80 Spain (Women)
3:15am UK Time. Did not watch.
Yesterday’s prediction: Spain by 21
Ouch. Next.
Japan 62 - 56 Canada (Men)
6:45am UK Time. Watched half.
Yesterday’s prediction: Japan by 11
So, after staying up late to watch the 1am games, not even my alarm (DOA by Foo Fighters) could wake me up to catch the start of this one.
I joined this game during the third quarter, with Canada leading 42-38. They then proceeded to stretch it out to 46-38, which I found pretty alarming considering Patrick Anderson was on the bench. I didn’t expect him to sit out for a second in a must-win game for winless Canada.
From that point on, Japan turned it around. They outscored Canada 24-10 after Canada got the first basket of the quarter, even weathering the storm after Pat re-entered the game. Hiro Kozai (another BU One To Watch - much better at those than game predictions) and Takuya Furusawa (14 points after a quiet start to the tournament) lead the comeback for Japan, taking turns making huge shots.
For Canada, both Pat and Nik Goncin had 20+ points on 33% shooting. Tough numbers to take when they’re already doing their best to carry a relatively offensively-challenged supporting cast.
Japan stay undefeated (I’m sure me waking up and putting the livestream on had at least something to do with it). This one ensures we’ll have a “something’s got to give” game, to decide the winner of Group A, when Japan play Spain tomorrow.
This one also means that Canada’s safest route to a spot in the quarter-finals is to secure wins against both Korea and Colombia over the next two days. Any result other than that could put the final spot down to points difference between those three.
Algeria 47 - 81 I.R. Iran (Men)
6:45am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: Iran by 25
Mohammadhassan Sayari must be a Bench Units follower, because he obviously saw me complimenting his performance yesterday and thought “wait till he sees this one”. Sayari dropped 30 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists on 70% shooting, seeing Iran to comfortable wins of each quarter.
I’ve harped on about them missing their primary guys and what they could be, but this is actually a fun team to watch. Having so many guys pushed higher up the pecking order and forced to take on the responsibility usually ends up in at least one of them strutting their stuff. This iteration of Iran is one of those international teams who seem a bit overmatched, but I’d be very interested to get a feel for how good they are by dropping them into a European league.
Speaking of overmatched, another tough one for Algeria. Nabil Guedoun gives it his all on every possession he’s out there. Where a lot of star players on weaker teams would take time to sulk, that dude brings it. Unfortunately, not much was going Algeria’s way when Iran’s size, depleted though it is, was enough to bottle up Omar Zidi, who was held to just 5 points on 4 shots.
Germany 59 - 57 Canada (Women)
9am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: Canada by 13
Disclaimer: there are large chunks of this game that I didn’t see. It was on at the same time as the Mens’ game between GB and USA, which we’ll get to in a second, so my attention was a bit divided.
I imagine a lot of people were in the same boat, and probably did the same thing I did when Germany pushed the lead out to double-digits and flipped over to watch the men. The good news is that, even if you only flipped back onto this one following that game, you still got to see Germany’s Anne Patzwald make one of the biggest plays of the Womens’ tournament so far. With 14 seconds to go in a final quarter that had seen Germany give every bit of their lead away, Patzwald hauled in an offensive rebound and, surrounded by Canadians, stuck it right back up and in.
Patzwald is a 1.0 and was swamped by defenders before and after the rebound and putback sequence. It was gutsy. She did it with the ferocity of someone who can’t believe that they can’t fit their hand luggage into the overhead storage on a plane, and takes it upon themselves to make it fit.
She might have been the most crucial X-Factor for a German team that very much looked like its two primary scoring options might be outnumbered by Canada’s balanced attack. Getting 8 points on 80% shooting from your 1.0 is invaluable in any game, but it felt huge here.
Germany lead Group A, with chance to seal it up against Japan tomorrow.
Great Britain 64 - 63 USA (Men)
9am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: USA by 14
Yo.
Let’s address the elephant in the room. My predictions are arbitrary and also widely and deservedly derided. You would not believe the grief I got from yesterday’s mystery predictor.
I try my best not to be biased on these things, and maybe me being conscious of that caused me to lean two heavily away from GB. Whatever the case, I was badly wrong and I’m equal parts sorry and fine with it.
This one was nuts. After GB effectively beat the USA at their own game in 2018, this one was definitely more of a clash of styles. The USA looked to leverage their speed and mobility, while GB looked to rely on their execution and composure on offense and discipline on defense. Agnostic to any game plan, Harry Brown continues to be intangibly elite every time he comes up against the Americans, and I always love seeing a team with such a spread of mobility struggle with the one guy that none of them can seem to match.
Weird stat: GB won this game despite having 19 less shots than the USA, 19 is also the exact difference in shooting percentage in their favour (57-38).
Watching the USA I was struck by the fact that, for a team that is almost completely perimeter-orientated, their mid-range shooting options aren’t particularly elite outside of Jake Williams (19 points on 9/17). Steve Serio never fails to affect the game, but his shot wasn’t dropping today (10 points on 4/14). Role players who can so often take over a game for them also didn’t have it going today, with Brian Bell, Matt Scott and Trevon Jennifer combining to shoot 5/21.
Even with all that inefficiency, the USA got a 12-point lead down to 7 after 3 quarters, and had the game tied up with 34 seconds to go. From that point, Harry drew a foul on Brian Bell and made one free-throw, before the USA’s final possession saw them forced to feed 1.0, John Boie, for a layup that was swatted out of bounds by Gregg Warburton. Gregg had picked up all 4 of his personal fouls in that final quarter, and pulled out a clean block on a game-saving play. MVP.
While we’re discussing guys who had big moments, special mention goes to my former colleague-in-predictions, Ben Fox. This magnitude of combined game and role is as big as anything he’s ever competed in, and he gave an 11-minute stint that helped turn the tide. Ian Sagar will get most of the credit, as they shared court-time together and Sagar put up most of the points, but Ben was huge in disrupting the USA’s press.
Australia 38 - 75 Great Britain (Women)
12:30pm UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: Australia by 3
On the one hand, another game I’m happy to take the reputational hit on. On the other hand, where has this been all tournament?!
GB punched their ticket to the next round with a resounding, and they’ll hope form-finding, win against Australia. Australia have proved themselves to be a feistier opponent than teams might have suspected, but GB came into this one with a previously unseen level of energy/desperation and didn’t seem interested in missing out on the QF party.
I didn’t have much faith at this point, but the girls showed me. In a huge game for the GB 2.5’s, Joy Haizelden and Laurie Williams combined for 32 points on 64% shooting, outclassing Australia’s two forwards in the buckets department (Amber Merritt and Georgia Munroe-Cook combined for 30 points on 41 shot attempts).
Coming off their best performance of the tournament, GB have booked themselves a knock-out game against undefeated China. Anything can happen.
Republic of Korea 66 - 54 Colombia (Men)
12:30pm UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: Korea by 8
Anyone who knows me knows that this is the kind of game that everyone else thinks I’m tragic for being quite invited to watch. Usually, a game between two winless teams doesn’t exactly scream “appointment viewing”, but anyone who’s watched how hard these two squads have competed against more talented opposition this week probably wants at least one of them to pick up a win.
As was mathematically inevitable, that happened. Korea get their first win of the tournament on the back of strong quarters to open each half. Seung Hyun Cho has been a mainstay for them but didn’t play in this game, and they got it done anyway. They rotated a ton and got equal minutes and production from almost everyone on their roster. One thing that wasn’t evenly spread was fouls. It continues to be a problem for Korea, who even saw their veteran, Ho Yong Kim, foul out (as in out of the whole actual game) in 11 minutes of game time.
I’ve glanced at the Colombia statsheet a few times now, and I still can’t work out where they got 54 points from. Diaz and Hernandez combined for 31, and everything else just came in dribs and drabs. I’ve been convinced Colombia can steal a win at some point, but it isn’t going to happen if nobody can help their bigs with the heavy lifting.
Looping back to these two teams’ battle with Canada for the fourth and final spot in Group A: this result puts Korea in sole possession of the right to play the winner of Group B (currently Australia), but expect a good bit of jostling over the next couple of days.
Up Tomorrow…
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.
1am - Spain vs Netherlands (Women) - Netherlands by 31
1am - I.R. Iran vs Great Britain (Men) - GB by 24
3:15am - Japan vs Germany (Women) - Germany by 12
3:15am - Colombia vs Turkey (Men) - Turkey by 18
6:45am - Germany vs Algeria (Men) - Germany by 37
6:45am - USA vs Australia (Men) - Australia by 4
9am - Canada vs Republic of Korea (Men) - Canada by 7
9am - Algeria vs USA (Women) - USA by 63
12:30pm - Spain vs Japan (Men) - Spain by 5
12:30pm - Canada vs Australia (Women) - Canada by 29
Another one in the books. As if you’re still reading these.