A rotated Greece outfit came up short against Israel in a 58-75 loss, with coach Vassilis Spanoulis giving game time largely to the team’s second string at the expense of many of their established stars.
The Greeks fell on the second day of the “EcommBx Cup” tournament in Cyprus on Monday morning (AEST), with the result being their second straight defeat after losing to Serbia the previous day.
Greece fielded a very rotated team with the likes of Kostas Sloukas, Konstantinos Mitoglou, and Kostas Papanikolaou rested and Giannis Antetokounmpo, Vassilis Toliopoulos, and Evangelos Zougris still in Athens.
As such, numerous second string players got game time like Nikos Chougkaz, Dimitrios Katsivelis, Eleftherios Liotopoulos, Athanasios Bazinas, Alexandros Samodurov and Omiros Netzipoglou.
The inexperienced Greek side put up a competitive fight in the first half of the match, but they felt the absence of their bigger names in the second as they lost to the Israelis for the first time in 28 years.
The scoreboard read 23-20 and 41-39 in favour of Greece after the opening two quarters before their opponents clawed in front at 49-56 after the third and then finishing 58-75 at the end of the fourth.
