I will continue this thread - which I started in the old Forum here in the new one (and if it was just to raise my post-counter ), to make it easier accessible.

Although I do not know if there is much sense in continuing this thread after all since I learned that at least SI and ESPN will also be covering the ECs on their webpages.

It always amazes me how good and comprehensive your sports coverage is. By the way: Your style of sports coverage is by far much more appealing to me as well, compared to our European style. Maybe this also adds to why I feel much more drawn to the so called \"U.S. Sports\" than to classic European sports like Soccer, besides many other facts ...


Please see the post below for my recap of the first game...(taken from the old forum).

In this thread, I will try to bore the shit out of you by covering the German Men's National Basketball Team playing at the European Championships in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, which also serves as a qualifying tournament for the Olympics at Beijing 2008.

In the first game, the Germans faced the Czech Republic and, being the favorites to win this opener by far, had a very hard time and needed one overtime and all Dirk Nowitzki had to offer to beat the Czechs 83:78.

In front of only half filled seats, the Germans proved unable to find a steady second scoring option besides Nowitzki and showed heavy problems connecting their freethrows.

The Czechs, behind a great effort of former NBA-Player Jiri Welsch did a great job in containing the German offense and balancing their attack behind Welsch, Barton and others. The Germans shot only 37 percent from the field in the first half and entered the second one albeit a scoring burst from Nowitzki trailing 25:31. But finally seizing control of the game, the German Wunderkind, who scored 35 Pts in the game to go along with 10 Rbs and 2 Blks, put the Germans ahead for the first time in the last quarter, after the Czecks has led by as many as eight point during the third.

The fourth quarter was a dramatic one, with the Germans leading 65:59 with six minutes to go, but due to bad free throw shooting and a strong showing by Welsch, the Czechs closed the gap after a three by Welsch 66:68 and even 72:73 with one minute to go. But after free throws from both sides, the score was equaled 74:74 and was send to overtime when the desperation shot of German PG Demirel, who showed an improved performance in the second half, went short.

Nowitzki then score four point in overtime to put the Germans ahead 79:76, Demirel finally connected on both his freethows and than took a charge to take away the Checks last Position. Closing the game out on dunk by German SG Demond Greene, the German secured their first win 83:78.

Although the Germans dominated the boards 44:33, they will need to improve if the team, who won silver at the last European Championships, wants to advance to the second round of the tournament, facing strong teams from Turkey and Lithuania in the upcoming games.

College Wolf posted in the old Forum:Yes you do (see first post in this thread). I do envy you *sigh*. I was lucky to find a one liner how Team USA played in the PanAmerica-Games recently...not speaking of any games from Argentina, Brazil or the other participants.

@ Dirk:
Yeah, he did a pretty good job, keeping the Germans alive through the first three quaters with contested threes, hard drives to the hole, rebounds and even some blocks. He looks well rested and very poised to make this tournament his living room. He looked nothing like the Dork that was unable to carry the higly favored Mavs (not by me, but it's easy to say that now) past Nellie's Warriors. But I guess, those Warriors would have tunrned those Czechs into mincemeat anyways. They are considered the weakest of this four-team-group (Czech Republic, Germany, Turkey, Lithuania) and although playing a very good team defense, lack a true shut-down-one-on-one defender to take care of the opposing Superstar (like Dirk, for instance).

@ Jiri:
He was a bust indeed. I guess he was one of those guys who, with their pathetic performances, hampered the integration of European players into the NBA for some years, creating the misleading perception that even high regarded Europeans were to soft and lacked the athleticism to become good NBA-Players. And even if some of those gambles paid out, it was considered to much of a risk by many GMs. Can you remember the Bucks trading the draft rights on Dirk to the Mavs for the rights on Robert \"Tractor\" Traylor? Great move, guys! But back to Jiri \"I dribble on my own foot\" Welsch: He carved out a nice career here in Europe, gained a lot experience in Title Games of European Top Leagues and, now being one of the true veterans, really led his team with great shooting (22 Pts.) and some nifty passes...I guess he just was not up to the pressure and expectations in the NBA.

@ Germany's victory:
I can't beleive it either. And they were extremely lucky pulling this one out. When one of our best shooter (PG Mithat Demirel) kept missing one of his two freethrows every time he was fouled in the waning minutes of the last quarter, enabling the Czechs to close the gap and finally sending this game to overtime...I thought we deserved to loose. Especially keeping in mind the extremly bad performance of everyone but Dirk in the first three quaters. I might be mistaken, but besides Dirk, I can't remmeber more than one other German player scoring AT ALL until after the halftime break. Face it: We played plain ugly!

@ The national teams:
The only other player that the common NBA-Fan might be at least remotely familiar with is Ademola Okulaja (University of North Carolina, 1/2 Season with the 76ers) who plays for Germany. But both the German as well as the Czech national team have some players with at least an american background in their teams: For Germany, there are Demond Greene (born in Fort Hood, TX) and Robert Garrett (born in Ochsenfurt, GER) and for The Czech Republic it is Maurice Whitfield (born in Philadelphia, PA)

Hello! Since you will be able to read a comprehensive recap of every game at SI or ESPN, I will try something new...LIVE BLOGGING ! Hope you will enjoy it.

Before the game:
Both teams will want to secure this game. The Turks (with Mehmet Okur and Hedo Turkoglu) who lost to Lithuania (who beat the Czechs by 20pts today) yesterday will need this game to stay alive.

2nd Minute:
The Turks win the tipoff and score on their first posession. The Refs blow the whistle on the first time a Turk remotely touches Nowitzki, ticky tack foul imo

3rd minute
Okulaja scores for GER with a three from the corner but gets blocked by Okur in the next possesion. The turks waste the posession with a moving screen, but the Germans throw the ball away as well. Very nervous start by both teams.

5th minute
The Germans defend well with their one-on-one defense. Nowitzki scores on two possesion in the face of his defender. Hamann, Greene and Okulaja (second triple) chip in with early support for GER. Then Greene collects his second foul, gets replaced by Garrett. score 12:6 Germany

8th minute
I just notice that the Turks do also play Ersan Ilyasova from the Bucks. He's Germany's most difficult task on defence...very active, moves well. Germany now goes small by exchanging C Femerling (no luck, no confidence) for F Jagla. Nowitzki scores from just inside the arc. Score . 14:10

10th Minute
Nowitzki got some rest the last 1:46, replaced by veteran Arigbabu. Germany rebounded well but shooting percentage and shot selection needs improvement. Arigbabu scored with a difficult fallaway on his first touch. The Turks have problems with the aggressive one-on-one defense, but stay in the game thanks to points by Turkoglu and mostly Ilyasova. The refs seem to be very picky and have given plenty of foul calls to both teams in the first quarter already.
End of first quater: GER: 16 - 11: TUR

Second Quarter:

12th Minute
Turkish Player Gönlüm misses on an open dunk! Idiot. Great pass freeing him up nonetheless. Germany keeps up their pressure defence. Liking that.
Score 21 - 13

14th Minute:
Turkoglu scored on a three, Nowitzki responded with his trademark fallaway-two. Turks loose possesion via backcourt violation. Too many fouls (Ger 8 Tur 6) already given by the refs.
Score 23:16

16th Minute:
Turkoglu with an ugly flagrant foul to stop a slam dunk attempt by Nowitzki, who scores on both free throws. Almost forgot that Okur also plays for Turkey...absolutely useless, that guy. 0/6 from the field 1/2 from the line. Cold as if he had left the fridge open last night.

18th Minute:
Great sign that the Germans are still defending very agressive in 3/4 court defense. Okulaja scores with a layup after a nice fake for GER. Okur scored his first FG with three minutes to go in the 2nd. Greene scored with a contested three for GER but gets taken out after picking up his third foul, but Turkoglu wastes both FT. German do not box out, Turs get the rebounnd. Another foul call, but Okur wastes both FT again. Turks are 6 of 16 from the line. Embarasing.

19th Minute:
Nowitzki scored with a wild two and lets another wild three follow - IN YOUR FACE! He gets fouled hard on another three but...no call! What's wrong with the refs?
Germany leads by 14

20th Minute:
Nowitzki beats the clock with another three,puts the German up by 15. Okur remains kind of invisible. The Turkish coach looks pretty pissed, I can understand him. On the last possession of the half, Okulaja misses with an off-balance shot.
End of first half: 40:37

Halftime
I am surprised by the Germans and disappointed by the Turks. I expected them to play better, but they never got accustomed to the high pressure defence of the Germans. I have seen only one play that worked out for them and that was the missed dunk by Gönlüm. Bad FT-Shooting kept them from taking advantage of the many fouls the refs called on the German guards. The Germans on the other hand, are getting the ball to Nowitki (18 Pts at the half) more quickly than against the Czechs and points by Okulaja (8Pts. 2/2 from beyond the arc), Greene and Jagla spread the floor enough to keep the Turks from doubling Nowitzki.

Weird note: In halftime ads, I saw that Germany's second biggest chocolate brand is having a lottery where you can win a \"chocolate pension\". One bar of chocolate for ever day...the rest of your life...yuck!


2nd Half - 3rd Quarter

22rd minute
Turkish coash left both Turkoglu and Okur on the bench to go all young at the beginning of the half. Understandable, since both were not that good...Okur sucked. Again, nervous beginning by bith teams. Turover TUR, turnover GER, airball TUR, Turnover GER, Turnover TUR, Turnover GER, missed shot TUR. Booooring! But the Germans seem at least to emulate something like a strategy.

24th minute
The Turks keep missing open shots, and are still scoreless in the second half (22% from the field in the game). The Germans have scored only two times, but on threes from Nowitzki and Greene (Germans are 100% from the arc) and a dunk by Femerling.
Timeout, lead: 21 Points for the Germans

28th minute
Unbelievable: Only the fourth time the Germans go to the line (5/5). Turkoglu is back on the field and scores the first points for the Turks. germany's own Turk Mithat Demirel scores by driving to the hole hard despite being only 5'8''. Defense against Nowitzki remains weak, since they continue going only one-on-one and they have no one able to defend him. Okur gets subbed in but...first touch...turnover. A night to forget for Okur
Score 53:33 for germany

29th Minute:
5 second violation Turkey. I wish I had some cool expressions in English to describe how bad the Turks look. Nowitzki is given some rest since the 28th minute, but the Germans continue to score with a tip in and a loooong three from the parking lot by Jagla (6'9''). The Turks are not getting better: Missed layup, made only one FT of two, but scored on a dumb turnover by Germany's Demirel who almost loses the ball again but is lucky that Okulaja picks up the loose ball. Arigbabu than misses the open three for GER, but gets his own rebound. Oh boy, the Turks are in hibernation or something.
58:38

End of 3rd Quarter - Score 58:39

I don't know if the Turk had tranquillizers in their Ayran, but they surely play like crap. They are below 40% from the line and below 30% from the field.

4th Quarter

32th minute:
This is the worst game I have seen the Turks play my entire life. Iljasova has also entered a submarine and went into crash-dive mode. But the Germans didn't fare that much better without Dirk. The old problem, all they do depends on him being present, so he got subbed back in with 8 minutes to go. Rebounds 31:21 for the Germans while shooting 48% from the field. Satisfying.
Score: 59:39

35th Minute:
The Germans milk the clock, and are getting lax on defense, but the Turks can't take advantage of it. Okulaja scores in a fastbreak of a turkish turnover with a circus shot \"and one\" and in the next possession with a dunk. Then Dirk with a monster block. The Turks look like they are going to puke. This game is over!
Score: 64:39

36th minute:
I have seen toddlers play a better offensive system than the Turks do. Maybe it was a bad idea to take Turkoglu and Okur and their \"We are better than our teammates\" attitude back into the team. Poisoned the chemistry I'd guess...much better with Dirk playing for germany, Gasol for Spain and AK47 for Russia. they are integrated better. Nowitzkis scores his points 23, 24...by the way.

37th minute:
German Coach Bauermann inserts 5 new players into the game at once. With a score of 69:41, he can give some rest to everybody else.
Score now 71:41

40th Minute - End of game

Ok, we really crushed the Turks, which completely fell apart in the last quarter. But with a strong showing like this by the Germans, even a win against Lithuania tomorrow is thinkable. But at least we'll advance to the next rounds no matter how the game goes tomorrow.

Score: GER 79:49 TUR

Germany
Nowitzki 24Pts 6 Rebs
Okulaja 13 Pts 9 Rebs
Greene 10 Pts 1Reb

Turkey
Turkoglu 15Pts 3Rebs
Iljasova 6Pts 5Rebs
Okur 5Pts 5Rebs

Holy. Cow.

Wow, that was awesome. Must have been tough to keep up? Anyhow, thanks!

Oh well, it was fun to do this once, but I would not want to do that all the time. Makes you miss a lot of action while typing. While rereading my posts today, I have also spotted lots and lots of missing words, typing errors and so on, which probably would not have happened if I had not been in such a hurry. I have corrected some of the errors I spotted by now, but I guess there are still many of 'em and I'm too lazy to search for them .

If the mistakes pile up towards the end of the game, that is because I emptied a 7$ bottle of red wine over the course of it ! And after all, it is not easy posting in a foreign language anyways...

By the way: I won't be able to see today's game against Lithuania live, because I have my weekly P&P roleplaying night with my buddys. I will tape it for later but since you will be able to read a recap of the game on the net earlier, I might just post a few impressions after I have seen it.

My take on the game: Lithuania wins by single digits.

Great job. Way to stay on top of it. You are talking to the right person about watching a game and drinking. CW, can give you all kinds of pointers. After all, he is the professional. I'm not sure that he's drinking wine though???

mwithers wrote:
Oh yeah, I could definitely help you out there. Let's say I've been perfecting the art the past few years...

As for your drink of choice, that's perhaps a little too high class for me. Mine's either cheap beer or excessive amounts of hard liquor. But yeah, good times.

I guess I am some sort of snob when it comes to alcohol !

I just go for dry whine (I prefer red ones from Italy, but I could also have a light french white one on a warm evening) or expensive Scotch Whiskey (mostly Tallisker or Lagavulin). I do like a good beer from time to time, but this is more like the liquid form of bread: It tastes good (if it is bitter enough) but you can't get drunk from it...waste of time !

Speaking of good beer: You don't have any over there. I have been to Milwaukee a few times and even the supposedly imported \"German\" beers turned out to be some weird tasting jizz that some Canadian had probably adulterated in his bathing tub. But maybe you have better options in other states...

Sanyarin wrote:
I highly doubt it. Milwaukee is the king of beer, that's all they have to do over there is make beer. I like American beer myself, mich golden light to be exact. But vodka is good. I like skyy melon vodka, peach schnapps, and peach mango v8 splash. Awesome.

I like anything with alcohol in it. Preferrably, the more the better.

I guess... I do have one exception: Cheap Tequila. Ever since my 20th birthday... ugh, I don't want to go there. Patron is pretty good though, very smooth.

I agree that our beer is bland for the most part, but there are some here that I do enjoy.

College Wolf wrote:


I know what I'm bringing next time I see you!!

We shared that bottle, I remember (sort of) you're 20th birthday...lets just say you drank more than your age.

whiskeydizzy wrote:
Hahahaha what was that Tequila called? \"Montezuma\" or something like that lol? I believe the final tally was 30 shots. Ugh.

College Wolf wrote:
Sounds like a good time.

mwithers wrote:
It was something... that's for sure. I don't really remember if we had fun or not.