Translated material
Getting closer to your dream
The Russian national team will meet with another “dream team” at the World Championships
Our men's national team at the FIBA World Championship in Turkey reached the quarterfinals, beating New Zealand in the first round of the playoffs - 78:56. The next opponent of head coach David Blatt's charges on Thursday evening will be the American "dream team" of the next convocation, that is, a team made up entirely of players from National Basketball Association clubs.On the day of our match with New Zealand, the continental branch of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA Europe) decided that not 16, as before, but 24 teams would take part in the final tournament of the 2011 Old World Championship. Russia is already included in this number, and it is unlikely that a situation will arise in the future when our team suddenly does not qualify for the European Championship. In the meantime, we have to solve tournament problems at the World Cup in Turkey. Russian basketball players cope with this very well - we are already among the eight strongest participants in the world championship. Moreover, in six matches played they suffered only one defeat.
The author, who was on a business trip, happened to watch a match with New Zealand in the third largest city of Serbia, Nis. The man worried about the Russians in front of a huge TV screen was immediately noticed by local residents. They came up and started talking. During the conversation, it became clear that the Serbs understand and accept in their hearts the absence of Andrei Kirilenko from our team, who is about to enter the final season of his contract with the Utah Jazz. But, on the other hand, the non-participation of CSKA playmaker, naturalized American John Robert Holden, raised many questions among my casual acquaintances. “Our government is now going to issue a Serbian passport to the Brazilian Partizan Belgrade football player Cleo,” said an interlocutor named Zoran. “We have nothing against it, but if he, already a citizen of our country, suddenly refuses to play for the national team, then he will be “eaten whole.” We then ask: why did they give him our passport? Although the situation with the possible refusal of the Brazilian is rather a matter of theory. Nobody will allow him to do this. Either they will force you to go out onto the field, or they will simply kick you out of here.”
Alas, in Russia everything is completely different. Thanks, of course, to Holden for his golden shot at our victorious 2007 European Championship. However, after that he missed several official tournaments with the participation of the national team, although as the holder of a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation in CSKA he is not considered a Varangian and does not fall under the legionary limit in the national championship. Perhaps the leadership of our basketball federation should consider depriving foreigners with Russian passports of the status of holder of Russian sports citizenship who do not want to play for the national team. Let such players be considered foreign players again, with all the ensuing consequences that may be associated with the existing quotas for “outsiders”. According to our information, Holden has been training for more than a week and preparing for the season in the CSKA camp. At this time, the orphaned team is doing everything possible and impossible, advancing in a completely weakened composition through the World Cup tournament bracket.
The Russia-New Zealand match was preceded by the USA-Angola meeting. The Stars and Stripes defeated the Africans without the slightest problem with a score of 121:66. Already at the end of the starting period, the advantage of the “dream team” of the next convocation reached 20 points – 33:13. Subsequently, the “dream team” calmly controlled the course of the meeting and, with some skillful laziness, increased its advantage. True, in the last ten minutes Mike Krzyzewski's team perked up and added 20 points to the already existing gap in the score.
The Russians did not succeed in many things in the opening game against the islanders, as their excitement took its toll. 11 players are holding their first world championship. It didn’t work out very well in attack; there were no mid- and short-range shots. It was not possible to catch up with the New Zealanders, who had sharply gone ahead in the first minutes (9:2), until the end of the opening quarter - 13:15. And only in the middle of the second period, after accurate shots by Alexander Kaun and Andrei Vorontsevich, two realized free throws by team captain Sergei Monya, it somehow became a little calmer - 26:21 in our favor.
When Vorontsevich, who had caught the courage in the third segment of the match, made two three-point hits with a short interval, the soul was completely relieved - 48:35. The New Zealanders were unable to get any closer to us at a dangerously close distance; the Russians were methodically increasing their advantage. Our point guard Dmitry Khvostov, who was somewhat in the shadows earlier at this championship, spent a lot of time on the court; the same forward Vorontsevich (18 points with only one miss out of eight field goals) and center Timofey Mozgov (16 points plus seven rebounds) gave an excellent game ). CSKA representative Viktor Khryapa, one of our strongest players, did not take to the court again - it seemed that he had not yet recovered from a leg injury, although before the start of the tournament Blatt assessed the degree of his participation in the tournament as 99.9%.
“The guys fully complied with my instructions, and generally defended themselves perfectly,” stated Blatt. - Of course, something didn’t work out in attack, but New Zealand scored only 56 points. We managed to neutralize the opponent's leader Kirk Penney. He corrected his statistics only at the end of the meeting. There is a match with the Americans ahead. We have nothing to lose here."