After winning against Canada, the Lebanese Basketball team lost to the French team convincingly 86 to 59. Our weak point today, as i had pointed it out few days ago, was our inside play and our rebound capability. We only had two centers and none were able to contain the French inside game. French players were very physical as well and dominated the box. Added to that, this new coach made the stupidest changes i’ve ever seen.
In the second quarter, as soon as Vroman sat on the bench, the French led a 10-0 run and kept it until the last quarter. He never asked for any time out to stop the French run.
In the third quarter, he chose to rest Fadi el Khatib, Elias Rustom, Rony Fahd and at some point Matt Frayge. We were down by 14 points for God’s sake! How do you put all your key players out? Or maybe he had hoped Ghaleb Rida and Ali Kanaan would make some difference? Ghaleb sure helped the French open up the gap every time he spread his legs (don’t ask me why he does that) to shoot his failed 3 pointers. Ali barely caught a rebound and was outside the box most of the time.
Fourth quarter was a joke too. No fight backs by any Lebanese player and the coach seemed careless. I really don’t understand how we get ourselves to the world championships and not put out a decent fight? Is it too much to ask for the team and his coach to be enthusiastic and motivated?
Next game is on Tuesday against New Zealand on Tuesday at 4 pm. If Lebanon loses, he is out.
Check out here the full stats of the game.
But if he wins, he’s all in to an unprecedented achievment..
It’s funny how I get the feeling you’re aching to a Lebanese elimination to try and prove an imaginary point completely unrelated to that respective and unfortunate result..
First off, it was in no way a humiliation, those are the World Finals, our mere presence here ranks us 23rd on planet Earth, besides the fact that we were playing against a team mostly made up of NBA players..
Second, the problem was not the inside game, we took care of that in the middle of the first quarter when Freije drew the offensive foul after his three pointer, after which we switched to a zone defense..the problem was turnovers, free throws and the second quarter.. and the solution surely is not to add to the roster a player who gets fouled out early in the second quarter..
Our coach was incredibly good yesterday and it was indeed disturbing to see all those mistakes he made tonight..
We could have easily won tonight’s game, it really is a shame we didn’t seize the opportunity..
We have to bounce back quick and win our game on Tuesday to advance to the second round.
P.S: For the sake of that deep sense of patriotism you most definitely and obviously possess Najib, try and not assume that we will lose against Spain and Lithuania, and thus get eliminated in case we lose on Tuesday, hope is good 🙂
Keane,
We could have won easily had we played properly. This is what pains me. We have the right players, not all of them but still, yet somewhow we manage to screw things around.
We did almost as many turnovers as they did and our free throw percentage was almost the same with a slight advantage to the french.
I dont give a damn if we win or not, not when you pick a coach as shitty as this one.
Habibe ya Najib, we had a 60% efficiency from the line, they had a 92,3% efficiency, it doesn’t get any easier than reading the boxscore properly, a boxscore you so kindly posted..
We have ALL the right players and the right coach, he messed up yesterday doesn’t mean he’s bad, and if you think he’s bad just because he didn’t pick Roy, trust me, I’m following closely our sports news, no one is blaming him for this, no one except you..
Again, Roy is still young, he’ll have the chance to work harder and prove himself later on in his career, but for now, the right decisions have been made..
It’s not about arguying just for the sake of arguying, the man knows what he’s doing, this is the first time we go to the world championships prepared, and with a little bit of focus we can nail an unprecedented achievment..
Maybe Fadi should postpone his fasting for a while, yrakkib dayn 3a 7alo mech ghalat, or maybe not, after all he did score 31 points in game 1..it reminds me of Jose Mourinho Vs. Sulley Muntari (“Muntari has a problem related to Ramadan…I think he shouldn’t be fasting with all this heat…perhaps Ramadan didn’t come in the ideal period of the year for a player to be playing a football match”), this man cracks me up..
Fasting, no fasting, playing naked, breaking the opponent’s knees, pissing on the court so that the opponent slips, whatever it takes, the National team has to do it, WE BELIEVE IN THEM!!!
Keane,
I pointed out we don’t have centers and was surprised they didn’t pick Roy. This is not about Roy anymore. This is about not having big guys inside to defend properly.
They were 92% effective because all their baskets were inside the box and god knows how many dunks they made.
The coach is not good and never anyone had critisized a national coach whether he played well or not. For them its good enough to get there which is completely absurd!
We can’t wait for Fadi to score 31 points to hope for a win. Remember we almost lost Canada’s game had Fadi not scored that much along with Matt Frayge.
I don’t know what to say anymore, it’s like you’re not reading, khayye 92% efficient from the free throw line, shou khassa bel dunks w bel inside game!! ya3ne after they got the foul and stood infront of the free throw line and dribbled the ball three times and looked at the basket to estimate the distance while the rest of the players where standing still on the sides of the basket, they scored 92,3 times on 100 while we scored 60 times on 100..:)
What is absurd is what you’re saying, the coach was critisized yesterday, and no one is settling for our presence there, all what everyone is talking about is advancing to the second round and making calculations to see our odds, and studying the next opponents..
It’s like you’re not watching the games, we don’t need Fadi to win, the whole team played against Canada, every move was calculated, every motion was played correctly, and this is why we won, not because Canada was bad but because we were so good, and we lost yesterday because we were so bad and not because France was so good..
10 turnovers against Canada versus 17 turnovers against France!!
26 rebounds against France versus 37 rebounds against Canada!! when you do it against giants like the Canadians, you can do it infront of anyone, but we were just not focused enough, added to that the absurd substitutions the coach made at very non-ideal moments..
Not all big guys know how to play and defend, and it is indeed sad when you have the physical advantage and only rely on that gift..
“The saddest thing in life is wasted talent” -Robert De Niro 😛
3am fakkir, as per FIBA rankings, we’re 24th in the World right now and Israel is 25th, it’s a good thing she’s not included in the World Finals, tsawwaro she falls in our group and we need one more win to advance to the second round and we still have our last game against Isarel…and we refuse to play 😀
Keane,
You have to see how many free throws the French got. 92% is a high number but if it all comes back to 6 free throws, it doesnt make any difference.
Anyway, we ll see what happens the next game.
ma fik te7soub hek, la2anno the timing of the free throws was very crucial, many of which came in occasions where we could narrow down the gap to less then 10 points..if you take the final score and add all our missed free throws to it, it won’t make any difference, but had we scored them when they were given, the momentum would have been built and a different result would have definitely occured..
I truly believe that, added to our laziness, we were really unlucky yesterday, let’s hope we nail it tomorrow..