Tokyo 2020 Wheelchair Basketball: Day 5 Round-Up
Whatever the final step of something being set in stone is, we're about there.
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.
Before we get started, please hit a couple of these buttons and help raise the profile of our coverage:
Let’s get into it…
Spain 24 - 63 Netherlands (Women)
1am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: Netherlands by 31
The Dutch got 40 from the Beijer and Kramer duo while Spain, fresh off a 72-point win, were led by Perez with 5 points.
Call me a cold-take artist, but I would be tempted to conclude that Spain are about somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of their last two performances. They deserve to be in the quarter-finals, but I’d be surprised to see them get any further than that. The class gulf between them and the Netherlands shows that they still have a ways to go.
Holland get back to looking dominant after some not-entirely convincing pool play. Their second-place finish in Group B earned them a game against Japan in the first crossover. They’ll be pretty heavily favoured in that one.
As for the Spanish, they nab the last QF spot in group B and have a date with Germany after a day off. They better savour that day off, because the road doesn’t get any easier.
I.R. Iran 57 - 69 Great Britain (Men)
1am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: GB by 24
Does this prediction count as half-right? I’m having it.
First off, hats off to Iran, who continue to play every possession as if their lives depend on it, even with getting through to the next round seeming increasingly unlikely. These guys have been against the odds and put it all out there. If you didn’t take my “hats off” comment literally then please go put a hat on and subsequently take it off. Iran deserve this well-intended and completely antiquated gesture. My hat of choice is a grey beanie. That will be all.
GB secured the win and find themselves guaranteed a spot in the elimination rounds, but in one of the weirdest and most precarious positions I’ve ever seen. They have one pool game left, tomorrow against Australia, and whether they win or lose that game will determine whether they finish first or fourth in group B. They can’t finish anywhere in between because of the three-way tie and points difference between them, USA and Germany, so it’s as close to all-or-nothing as a game can get.
But back to this game: GB got the win on the back of some vintage performances from Terry Bywater (18pts/16 ast) Abdi Jama (16 pts) and Ian Sagar (14 pts). It was enough to give GB’s other veteran, Gaz Choudhry, a slight let-up in workload. The player-coach was only on the floor for 6 minutes in this game, and I’m sure that’s a welcome break from the intense double-duty he’s pulled up to this point. I wonder if James has had the audacity to tell him about how he had to be the Best Man and Flower Girl at my wedding.
Iran-wise, my guy Sayari continues his “I’m the best Iranian big” campaign, putting up 27 more comically efficient points. As I mentioned the other day, Iran are using this tournament’s relative lack of expectations to give their less experienced guys chance to improve, and 22-year-old Mojtaba Kamali is doing just that. Made some huge shots throughout the game, not seeming particularly phased by any GB defender. Assuming Iran get all their guys back at some point, they’re going to have 6 legitimate bigs in the rotation.
Japan 54 - 59 Germany (Women)
3:15am UK Time. Did not watch.
Yesterday’s prediction: Germany by 12
So, I wrote the above bit about the Netherlands being the favoured team in their quarter-final before this game had finished (I’d predicted a Japan loss, so thought I’d get writing that bit of the article as the Netherlands - Spain game was wrapping up. I don’t have to justify the diversification of my wasted time to you.), and I wasn’t really anticipating that Japan would end up sticking it to the team that’s topped Group A quite like this. The Netherlands might be in for a scrap here.
It took Germany a 22-12 final quarter to pull this one out. Side note: is it me, or have we seen a lot of fourth-quarter comebacks leading to a win so far?
Anyway, this game was one German hot streak away from Group A being a three-way tie for first place. That would have still seen Japan finish third, so no real damage done here.
Typical Germany game here, as Miller and Lang racked up the high-percentage looks and dominated inside. As of right now, I’m having a tough time seeing a definitive reason to pick any of the other likely contenders (Netherlands, USA, China) over Germany.
Colombia 38 - 80 Turkey (Men)
3:15am UK Time. Did not watch.
Yesterday’s prediction: Turkey by 18
I’ve stumped for Colombia at multiple points throughout this tournament, and maintain that they’re a competitive team on paper. However, paper doesn’t account for how heavily you rely on the same 5 guys to keep every game close.
That kind of fatigue is enough to take you down at least one notch, from a potential “gotcha” team to a team that won’t be able to climb back into it after giving up one run. Unfortunately for the Colombians, hoping that a team like Turkey don’t go on a run might be a tad optimistic.
One glance at any Turkish stat sheet this tournament tells you all you need to know. If they accomplish some combo of having more than Ozgur Gurbulak in double figures, Ozgur having double-digit assists, and at least being competitive in terms of rebounding, Turkey tend to be in good shape.
All three of those criteria got a check in the box for this game. Turkey’s non-Gurbulak guys shot 48%, leading to 11 Ozgur assists on 25 of their makes. They also got 43 rebounds to Colombia’s 31.
Colombia’s core of Leep, Hernandez and Diaz have seen their collective production dip in every game as the tournament has progressed. Teams have figured them out, and they don’t have enough depth or options outside those three to counteract it.
Germany 71 - 50 Algeria (Men)
6:45am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: Germany by 37
Germany are good, Algeria not so much.
It wasn’t a 37-point difference, as Algeria seem to be getting better with at least keeping scorelines respectable, but there wasn’t much doubt here as to who the better team was.
Alex Halouski’s impact seems to be creeping up with each game (17 points). I remain baffled by how quiet he’s been in the big games and, while today’s performance was an improvement, it doesn’t exactly make him a lock to produce what Germany need from him when the big moments do come. No question that he’s a great player, but how much he asserts himself over the rest of the tournament very much defines Germany’s ceiling.
Outside of him, Thomas Bohme is still the man. 21 points and a continued existential threat from 3. Just another day at the office for that guy.
USA 66 - 38 Australia (Men)
6:45am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: Australia by 4
Well, Australia by 4 it was not.
I’ve made a lot of incorrect predictions this week, with varying levels of incorrectness, but this might be the one I’m most surprised by.
17-15 to the USA at the end of the first quarter made it look like we were in for a treat here, but that turned out to only be the case if you’re distinctly pro-America or anti-Australia.
The USA won the middle two quarters of the game by a combined 37-15 margin. If it hadn’t been for a Jake Williams shooting display so incredible that it actually overshadowed the quality of his all-around game (24 pts/8 reb/7 ast), then this one might have been verging on unwatchable.
Australia, who’ve looked as convincing as any team in the tournament up to this point, got so rattled by the USA’s defensive intensity that they took themselves out of the game. The physical pressure wore them down mentally, leading to misses on extremely makeable shots, turnovers in would-be advantage situations, and defensive breakdowns on simple actions.
The USA turned the screws on them, but I really didn’t expect Australia to abandon the game-plan like that. Not a single one of their high-pointers could find a way to get going against the smaller USA team, which seems like a good indicator of a lack of composure. They seem too good and experienced to be rattled like this again, so maybe it’s a good thing that this happened in the group stages, especially seeing as Australia still have a chance to finish top.
Canada 74 - 64 Republic of Korea (Men)
9am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: Canada by 7
It is not a slight on Korea to say that they didn’t have an answer for Patrick Anderson. Even at this stage of his career, not many teams or players can claim to have the antidote.
This game is likely to be the deciding factor in who punches their ticket to the next round, and it seemed only fitting that the game was entirely a reflection of the guys who have carried each team up to this point. In a game that Canada won by 10, Anderson and Nik Goncin combined for 52 points, which is approximately 10 more than the 42 Korea got from Dong Hyeon Gim and Seung Hyun Cho. As obvious as it sounds, that’s the difference in a game where Korea didn’t have a third guy step up.
Aside from the numbers, it’s worth mentioning that Pat’s feel for what a game needs might still be unmatched. With it all hanging in the balance at the beginning of the fourth quarter, he used a vintage Pat stretch to give Canada control of the game. It isn’t realistic to expect 40 minutes of that from him in every game going forward, but it’s also unrealistic to expect even 5 minutes of that level of domination from almost anyone in the world.
Algeria 21 - 62 USA (Women)
9am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: USA by 63
There’s cruising to a win, and then there’s this game. The USA’s stars may have had a tougher night if they’d been packed off on an actual cruise, as Rose Hollermann, Natalie Schneider and Lindsay Zurbrugg combined for 18 points in 23 minutes and let their supporting cast finish the job.
The reigning Paralympic champions complete the group stage with a 2-2 record, 3rd place in Group B, after easy wins over Spain and Algeria, and competitive losses against China and the Netherlands. The stats would tell you that they’re more in the mix with the top two teams than the bottom two, and I would go so far as to say that Canada probably feel just a bit cheated that an intra-North America showdown is their reward for finishing with a higher seed in their group. That should be a great game.
Algeria are officially eliminated from the quarter-finals and will play Australia for 9th place.
Spain 79 - 61 Japan (Men)
12:30pm UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: Spain by 5
Me and James have talked about it on-record, we’ve talked about it off-record, we’ve talked about it between the two of us, with teammates, opponents, basketball-literate friends, and our partners who just want us to stop talking about basketball.
The question is always the same: how, exactly, does Asier Garcia do it?
The answer is that he’s good, and he’s smarter than almost everyone who thinks they’ve figured him out. Put him in Bilbao, put him in the Spanish League, put him in EuroLeague, put him at a Paralympics, and looks will almost always be deceiving. Fact is, he’s probably better than the other team’s best player. And if he’s not, he finds a way to be for some stretch of a 40-minute game.
Garcia had 27 points, 12 rebounds and 17 assists to carry a Spanish team that didn’t get the usual level of production from its second and third guys. Watching him pick teams apart is like a slow-motion video of a wrecking ball taking down a well-architected building, but if the wrecking ball was photoshopped to look like a giant pillow or marshmallow.
As good as Japan have been so far, they could not keep up with the onslaught in this one. The size and length of the Spanish defense took away some of the subtleties in the games of Hiro Kozai and Reo Fujimoto, leaving Japan in an 18-point hole and looking a bit short of answers at half-time.
Japan took a swing and deployed their younger guys in the second half, and Renshi Chokai’s injection into the game was truly spectacular. For the whole first half, Japan looked like my home WiFi connection on an average day, but the Chokai substitution made them look like that artificial WiFi network bump that the internet company give you for like the first 24 hours after you call up and complain. Chokai also ended up going a bit rogue and committing an unsportsmanlike out of sheer enthusiasm. Where that fits into the WiFi metaphor is up to you.
Anyway, Spain finish top of Group A and will have a date with either GB or Germany in the QF. Group B has been thought of as the stronger group all along, but if any team can argue with that right now then it’s Spain.
Canada 76 - 37 Australia (Women)
12:30pm UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: Canada by 29
Hey, you know what numbers I always get mixed up? 29 and 39.
I’m sure Canada won’t mind. They cement themselves as second in the group and have the USA to prepare for, so I’m sure they don’t care about this blog that is still for my own amusement.
Canada finishing second in the weaker of the women’s groups kind of leaves the question open as to whether they’re on the same level as the bonafide contenders. A look across the statsheets of their games and the solid performances they’ve had up and down the roster indicates that they just might be, and they might even be thought of that way if they’d come out on the other side of that loss to Germany. As of right now, they need one real statement win to prove themselves. A crossover against the USA seems like a decent enough candidate.
Australia finish bottom of Group A after some tough losses, but will have the chance to salvage some pride against Algeria.
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 - Colombia vs Canada (Men) - Canada by 26
3:30am - Germany vs I.R. Iran (Men) - Germany by 18
6:45am - Turkey vs Japan (Men) - Turkey by 8
9:15am - Australia vs Great Britain (Men) - GB by 6
12:30am - Algeria vs USA (Men) - USA by 73
Thanks for reading. Break out your hammer and chisel and we’ll get this set in stone.