Macedonia crush NZ - Basketball

[chentovist]

http://www.sportal.co.nz/basketball-news-display/macedonia-crush-nz-185548

Macedonia crush NZ



New Zealand suffered a 84-62 loss in the first round of the Olympic men's basketball qualifiers against Macedonia on Wednesday (NZT).

Despite missing a number of key players, coach Nenad Vucinic insisted that his players were capable of downing their Macedonian counterparts - ranked 48 places beneath NZ at 67 - but it was not to be as New Zealand went down by a hefty margin.

A game that was never within their grasp, New Zealand looked well off the pace as they quickly fell to a 15-point deficit by the end of the first quarter, shooting at just 22 percent from the field.

Without offensive weapons Kirk Penney and Thomas Abercrombie, due to injury, it was a lead that the side was never able to reel in as the Macedonians blew away to a 27-point buffer late in game.

New Zealand's top performer, Alex Pledger, was the only player to reach double figures, with 11 points and 11 assists.

The first round loss means Vucinic's men must beat Angola on Thursday if they are to have any chance of obtaining one of three remaining spots at the London Olympics later this month.

This is New Zealand's fourth successive defeat, having lost all three of their warm-up games against Brazil, Greece and Nigeria

[chentovist]

Macedonia is currently on top of Group D;

http://london2012.fiba.com/pages/eng/fe/12/olym/team/p/eid/6232/lid//rid//sid/6229/tid/2604/profile.html

[George S.]

oh well good playing by macedonia & congrats.

[United MKD]

If we didnt screw up against Angola first game we would of pretty much sealed a spot in the Olympics. Now we have to do it the hard way against Russia in the quarters! Big missed oppotrunity.

[Razer]

Congrats to Macedonia. I really mean it.

[Momce Makedonce]

If we didnt screw up against Angola first game we would of pretty much sealed a spot in the Olympics. Now we have to do it the hard way against Russia in the quarters! Big missed oppotrunity.

Agreed its gonna be tough but not impossible. I still wonder why MACEDONIA is not on the player`s singlets. It seems we are the only nation with this "trend".

[lavce pelagonski]

Momce they would have to get FYROM printed on those singlets those are the rules.

[United MKD]

Yeah lavce is right. It's either FYROM or vitaminka the sponsor lol.

[zenan]

will be very tough against Russia, we lost 2 times vs Russia in the Eurobasket last year..what a shame we couldnt beat Angola, looks like the Macedonian olympic team will be very small like always.

[Momce Makedonce]

Momce they would have to get FYROM printed on those singlets those are the rules.

Yeah lavce is right. It's either FYROM or vitaminka the sponsor lol.

Pero Antic would be pretty happy with FYROM on his singlet after what he said a month ago on television.

[zenan]

omg, somehow despite losing to Angola in the first game we are the group winners, beacuse New Zealand won vs Angola, so we will face Korea or the Dominican republic in the semifinal, and the semifinal winners qualify for the olympics, golden chance and really, if we manage 5th place in Eurobasket, Korea or Dominican republic should be easy.

[TojSum]

omg, somehow despite losing to Angola in the first game we are the group winners, beacuse New Zealand won vs Angola, so we will face Korea or the Dominican republic in the semifinal, and the semifinal winners qualify for the olympics, golden chance and really, if we manage 5th place in Eurobasket, Korea or Dominican republic should be easy.

Yes Zenan we finished first in the group and will play in friday with Dominican republic but not in semifinals we play in quarterfinal. Qualifiers for the olympics are finalists and the winner in the game for third place. In the Eurobasket we managed 4th place not 5th.

[DraganOfStip]

The title of this thread doesn't show the real picture.I watched the entire game and for those of you that didn't i can tell you that we have to improve our play if we want to make it to London.We were only 7 from 27 for 3 points,something that was our strongest element at the EC in Lithuania.That's very,very poor.Also,we missed 8 out of 19 free throws,a very crucial part of scoring since there's no one to block your shot,an average player scores at least 80% of those.So,this can be a very big problem,i think Lazovski should get his boys do some practice shots these 2 days,they just have to improve.And in addition,we were once again out-rebounded by 11,we obviously can't jump and that's another big issue since it gives the opponents another chance for a hoop.These 3 elements combined mean disaster,we were very lucky the Tall Blacks sucked in every aspect of the game,if it was a country in the level of Greece,Russia or Lithuania we would have been blown away.Improvement has to be made or it's bye bye London.

[Zakynthian]

hey guys, congrats to macedonia, well deserved victory over nzl

[Zakynthian]

imo GRE, RUS, LTU and MKD will make it to the semis. from that stage everything is possible. Russia's Kirilenko is in a very good condition, a true nightmare for his opponents. I was expecting ilievski doing a better job but finallyh McCalebb assisted MKD's game enough for a win. Spanoulis is so far the MVP of the tournament