Greece was knocked out of the 2009 Eurobasket tournament by main rival Spain in a one-sided semi-final showdown. The Spaniards outclassed Greece in offence to set up an easy 18 point win, 82-64 on Saturday night in Poland.
Importantly, Greece sealed qualification for the 2010 World Championships in Turkey by virtue of finishing in the top four. Greece will now play Slovenia in the third place classification match, while Serbia will meet the reigning World Champions Spain in the final.

Semi-Final:
Spain 82 – Greece 64

Spanish superstar Pau Gasol scored 18 points and grabbed six rebounds to lead his side into the final of Eurobasket.

The Spaniards shut down Greece guard Vassils Spanoulis and Nikos Zisis with a tight defence that never allowed Greece to play its fast running style.

“It was a very good game, especially because our (level of) defence once again was the one we’ve been working so many weeks to get to,” Spain coach Sergio Scariolo said. “This is the main key.”

Greece was held scoreless for the first four minutes of the second quarter allowing Spain to open a 34-24 lead which was eventually extended to as much as 23 points.

“We made some bad decisions offensively in the first half, we gave them some fast breaks and they scored some easy points,” Greece guard Ioannis Kalampokis said. “It was hard for us to try to recover.”

Greek big man Ioannis Bourousis scored 11 points and seven rebounds, though he only shot 33% from the field.

Young Greek American Nick Calathes added ten points off the bench in a hard working performance.

Nikos Zisis and Vasilis Spanoulis were limited under the big pressure of the Spanish guards and combined only 13 points.

“We put pressure on Greece and we got a lot of steals that allowed us to take a comfortable margin,” said Jorge Garbajosa of Spain referring to the 11-20 difference in favor of Spain in the turnovers.

“The defense on Spanoulis was really important,” said Coach Scariolo, after forcing the Greek guard to commit six turnovers tonight.

Quarter-Final:
Greece 76 – Turkey 74 (over time)

Greece inflicted the 100th Eurobasket loss on Turkey in the knock-out stage of the 2009 tournament in a fantastic match that will be remembered for another spirited Greek fight back.

A game-high 23 points from Spanoulis including two huge three pointers in over time gave Greece the edge in the tight game.

In a year of transition for Greece, it was the experience of Spanoulis, the rebounding of Antonis Fotsis and the defense of Georgios Printezis that helped them claim their biggest win of the year.

“We never stopped believing that we could win this game,” said Spanoulis, who had a game-high 23 points and buried six of his team’s 10 three pointers.

“This is a new team, with a new coach, new players and new ideas but we still made it to the top four at the Eurobasket and that’s a big thing for us.

“We tried to play very hard on defense in every play and that’s what we did today as well.”

Spanoulis made six of nine shots from behind the arc and Fotsis had a game-high 13 boards to go with his 11 points.

Amazingly, Greece went on a 8-0 run in the final minutes of regulation to turn a seemingly unassailable Turkey six point margin, into a two point Greek lead with 36 seconds remaining.

But the Turks equalised with a last gasp lay-up to send the match into overtime.

With less than a minute on the clock, it was the Turk’s chance to chip away at Greece five point lead in the extra period.

But Endan Arslan missed a three pointer to win the game, giving Greece a famous two-point win and automatic qualification to the 2010 World Championships next year.