Tokyo 2020 Wheelchair Basketball: Day 6 Round-Up
See you later, Group Stage. Time for Level 2.
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…
Colombia 52 - 63 Canada (Men)
1am UK Time. Did not watch.
Yesterday’s prediction: Canada by 26
I know, I know. How could I be so selfish as to not stay up for a game starting at 1am for the third night in a row?
Maybe I’d have done that if this blog wasn’t so damn free for you all to read, but I’m not ready to start starving myself of sleep until you guys are coughing up to help fund the coffee and ProPlus bill. Just think about the fact that Bench Units has never made it to video format. That’s how badly I can’t afford to sacrifice my beauty sleep. As I’m typing this, I become very aware that this isn’t what you’re here to read. Let me shout into the void on a topic that interests you.
Colombia would have had to win this game by 13 for them to win a three-way tie for the fourth quarter-final spot, which felt like a lot to ask of a team that hadn’t secured a win prior to the game and seem to have been suffering from severe exhaustion while getting blown out by Turkey yesterday.
Oh, and Pat Anderson still doesn’t seem in any way interested in missing out on the chance to give the eventual 1-seed of Group B a scare. Anderson & Goncin, Canada’s rocks through five games, put their usual shifts in (22 pts/17 reb/8 ast for Anderson, 15/7/8 for Goncin). The difference this time was that they got real contributions from other guys on their roster, with both Paralympic veteran Bo Hedges (10 points) and relative newcomer Colin Higgins (14 points) getting in on the act.
Higgins showing some flashes is interesting but doesn’t really meet any of Canada’s squad needs because he can only play instead of one of their more established bigs. Having a legitimate third big in the rotation is undeniably important (see yesterday’s section on Iran), but Canada need a prospect in the 2.5-3.5 range to crop up and give their lineups some dynamism.
For Colombia, they got enough from their starters to keep the game within reach after going down by 16 at half, but couldn’t compensate for the pressure that Canada put on Jhon Hernandez, who was held to 8 points on 16 shots. Daniel Diaz (18 pts/11 reb) and Jhoan Vargas (16 pts/5 ast) did their part to pick up the slack, but having Hernandez in handcuffs for most of the game, combined with only 6 points from Jose Leep, meant that putting a comeback run together was a fairly ambitious proposition for Colombia.
Canada now have to get ready for Great Britain in the crossover game, while Colombia will go up against Algeria to try and secure 11th place.
Germany 56 - 53 I.R. Iran (Men)
3:15am UK Time. Did not watch.
Yesterday’s prediction: Germany by 18
Has anyone’s profile changed more, for better or worse, during the group stages than Germany’s has? I think I come away from this win feeling less convinced about them than I was after their loss to Australia.
After me hounding him all week, we finally got a real performance from Alex Halouski. I really hope he’s been reading these and decided that he was going to shut me up because Germany needed every one of his 27 points and 15 rebounds to pull this one out.
Germany’s dip in quality is a combination of the fact that Thomas Bohme has cooled to more of an ongoing simmer rather than volcanic eruptions, and that their most important supporting pieces, Bienek and Dreimuller, have proved to not be consistently at the level that they were when Germany ran the USA close and beat GB. The ceiling for Germany is very much still there, and they’ll need to bump all the way up against it if they want to stick it to Spain in the quarter-final.
Speaking of coming down to Earth, Iran’s Mohammadhassan Sayari saw his shooting percentage drop to less than half of what it’s been over his last two games. Shooting 67.5% against more talented teams was never going to be sustainable, and it says a lot for his game that he was still able to post a statline of 16 points, 15 rebounds and 18 assists. That’s something that most players will never do in any game in their career, let alone in a game that could have seen them sneak into the quarter-finals of a Paralympics.
Instead, Iran will fight for the 9-spot against South Korea. It doesn’t sound like much of a consolation prize, but I really think that there’s no shame in being 9th place in this field.
Turkey 55 - 67 Japan (Men)
6:45am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: Turkey by 8
The end score probably doesn’t show it, but this one was a great game to watch.
Turkey by 3 after 10 minutes. Japan by 1 after 20 minutes. Still Japan by 1 after 30 minutes. Japan by 12 at the final buzzer.
After coming in and going full Energizer Bunny in the second half against Spain yesterday, Renshi Chokai had one of the more unique games in the tournament in this one. Chokai played all 40 minutes, pulled down 14 rebounds, logged 8 assists, and struggled to 4 points on 2/10 shooting. For a relatively lightweight 2.5 to struggle to be struggling with his shot and still manage to finish the game as a +12 is pretty special, especially against a physically imposing bunch like Turkey. How much do you think the weight advantage is for Ismail Ar, the smallest guy in Turkey’s starting unit, over Chokai?
Outside of Chokai, there were two main reasons for Japan grabbing this win and securing second place in Group A. The most obvious one was Hiro Kozai, who continues to justify his headlining status on Bench Units Ones To Watch. Kozai had kept the game ticking along for 3 quarters, playing his usual role as a facilitator and bail-out shooter. A rare killer mentality came over him in the 4th, as he dropped 10 of his 22 total points, including a dagger deep fadeaway over Ozgur Gurbulak to haul Japan to safety.
Speaking of Gurbulak, Japan showed themselves as the first team in Tokyo who have been capable of taking the Turkish star out of the game, with their mobility and switching able to take away both his mismatch shooting and pick-and-roll creation for others. Gurbulak was held to 9 points on 17 shots and was visibly frustrated by the Japanese defense. Ugur Toprak did his best to take the reins for Turkey, putting up 17 points and taking a heavier ball-handling load, but his increased responsibility highlighted some of this team’s limitations in creating high-percentages looks when Gurbulak isn’t dictating terms.
For a basketball junkie/nerd watching this game, it is genuinely strange to see Gurbulak put in a straightjacket like he was today. Gurbulak typically orchestrates possessions and engineers the switches he wants like a guy at one of those restaurants where they let you pick your own lobster out of the tank. Even if they are a thing in Istanbul, I don’t imagine Gurbulak goes to those restaurants. I can’t imagine he finds that gimmick at all appealing unless the restaurant offers him the chance to kill the lobster himself.
As mentioned, this game settles Japan into second place and Turkey into third. Tough draw for Turkey, who get the USA and more waves of hypermobile defenders. Japan will go up against Australia, and that one will be fascinating.
Australia 69 - 70 Great Britain (Men)
9am UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: GB by 6
Oh my. I wish it had been by 6. Even a margin that narrow would have been better for my blood pressure than this one was.
I mentioned in a post a couple of days ago that my alarm didn’t wake me up for a game. It turns out the alarm on my phone no longer works, even after I tried to revive it by changing the tune to a Joe Satriani blues-jam. As a result, my accidental nap after Turkey/Japan ended meant that I only woke up and turned this game on as Tom O’Neill-Thorne drained his third three-pointer (and 15th, 16th and 17th point) of the opening quarter, taking Australia to a 27-15 lead.
I spent the bulk of the second quarter on the phone with our upcoming podcast guest host, so missed a lot of that action too. By the time half-time ended, GB were down by 13 and I was really none the wiser as to how they’d gotten there.
I also have to admit that I still couldn’t tell you, because the second half of the game was a different story.
GB’s starting lineup found its rhythm in the second half, with hot shooting from both Gaz Choudhry (28 points) and Gregg Warburton (22 points) leading GB to a 25-17 advantage and cutting the Aussie lead down to 5. This quarter saw something of a shadow of yesterday’s game against the USA, where the Australians began to lose their cool as the momentum shifted away from them.
The margin was still at 5 with 2:41 left to play but was cut to 2 when Gaz splashed a three 15 seconds later. GB took their first lead of the entire game at the 1:24 mark, when Lee Manning (11 points, 14 rebounds) finished inside off an assist from Harry Brown. That play felt like the straw that broke the camel’s back, as Harry had chased a loose ball all the way out from the paint to above the three-point line, only to fire it back inside to Lee for the basket as the shot clock came perilously close to 0.
But that wasn’t all, as Jannik Blair (what a great day in terms of validating our Ones To Watch list, by the way) drained a freethrow-line catch-and-shoot to put Australia back up.
With GB staring down the difference between a first-place and fourth-place finish in Group B over the last minute. Gaz Choudhry stepped up to the mark and drained the deciding basket. Putting GB and allowing them to survive an Australian turnover and desperation heave to secure the win.
GB top the pool, and now have a 1-point win against each of the teams that I predicted them to take a loss to in the pool-play. Shout-out to Harry Brown, who has come up huge in some of the biggest possessions of each of those games. He did it today while going scoreless, but I’d say being +9 in a must-win game that your team wins by 1 point probably makes up for that.
GB get Canada. Australia, who started 3-0 before suffering 2 losses, will draw Japan.
Algeria 25 - 86 USA (Men)
12:30pm UK Time
Yesterday’s prediction: USA by 73
I mean precisely zero disrespect to Algeria when I say that I’m so glad this game was on last. After being on the edge of vomiting for almost all of the GB/Australia game that I was awake for, watching the USA’s defensive showcase was felt weirdly familiar, predictable, and quite calming for the nerves.
Considering how much they’ve been up against it all tournament, there wasn’t much prospect of Algeria putting a shock into a USA team that seemed to find its groove over the past couple of days.
Nobody from the USA played more than Ryan Neiswender’s 27 minutes, and this game gave them a chance to get some vintage performances from their veterans. Josh Turek (21 pts/6 reb), Mikey Paye (10 pts/6 ast) and Bench Units familiar face Matt Scott (16 pts/9 reb/7 ast) all showed out, affording guys like Steve Serio, Jake Williams and Brian Bell an early finish to the proceedings.
To show just how tough of a go it was for Algeria, they got combined totals of 0 points, 10 rebounds and 2 assists from Nabil Guedoun and Omar Zidi, who have been producing respectably in spite of the odds up to this point. Put frankly, there was never a roadmap to them winning this game.
Up Tomorrow… Women’s Quarter-Final 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.
1am - 9/10 Playoff - Australia vs Algeria - Australia by 20
4:30am - Canada (A2) vs USA (B3) - USA by 6
7am - Germany (A1) vs Spain (B4) - Germany by 31
10:15am - China (B1) vs Great Britain (A4) - China by 14
12:45pm - Netherlands (B2) vs Japan (A3) - Netherlands by 22
That’s the group stage all wrapped up, and you one tournament phase closer to not having to read my self-indulgent ramblings anymore.