Spain escapes Nigeria for 1st win, but problems abound again

          

The struggles of back-to-back silver medalists are among the biggest stories of the Olympic men’s basketball tournament in Rio de Janeiro. Tabbed to challenge for a medal and potentially finish in the gold-medal game again, Pau Gasol and his teammates instead struggled through narrow tournament-opening losses to Croatia and hosts Brazil.

 While those losses were surely disappointing, they also rated as explicable thanks to the level of talent on each opponent’s roster. A few bounces in another direction could have put Spain at 2-0, and it seemed fair to assume that they would handle fellow Group B cellar-dweller Nigeria with relative ease on Thursday.

Spain did get that much-needed 96-87 win vs. Nigeria, but the game itself is unlikely to inspire much confidence in their ability to take hold of Group B and progress deep into the elimination round. Spain turned around many of the offensive struggles that had typified its previous losses but saw Nigeria expose new defensive frailties to erase several big leads. A 1-2 record looks a lot better than 0-3 and keeps Spain in contention to get through the group, but there are still plenty of questions surrounding one of the most decorated squads in international basketball.

Thursday’s game initially looked like a welcome return to form for Spain. They won the first quarter 25-11, using clear talent and size advantages at both ends to score around the hoop and limit Nigeria’s good looks. Yet that dominance proved short-lived — Nigeria burst out of its shooting funk to cut the deficit to just 43-41 at halftime. With former Oregon guard Chamberlain Oguchi (a game-high 24 points on 7-of-12 3FG) leading the way, Nigeria heated up from the perimeter and managed to turn the game into a shootout.

Spain bounced back to build a 13-point lead after four minutes of the second half, but they were never able to keep Nigeria’s offense under wraps for long stretches of time. The underdogs closed the period on an 18-4 run to take a 66-65 lead in the final seconds of the third, and it looked as if Spain might be headed for an 0-3 start no one could have foreseen when their Olympic tournament started on Sunday.

Spain’s offense found its form in the fourth quarter and pulled away in the final minutes, but the margin of victory was far from ideal. Nigeria lost to Argentina by 28 in their Olympic opener, so Spain is still far off the form of its ostensible peers. If there’s any positive to the situation, it’s that Spain lost two games and won another by a single point in London in 2012 and still managed to face the United States for gold.

Nevertheless, Spain has lots of work to do. They will end Thursday tied for fourth place in the group with Brazil, which will hold the tiebreaker should they finish with the same record. The worse news is perhaps that Spain still has to play Argentina and Lithuania, the only teams in Group B to win their opening two contests. One of those squads could opt to lose to avoid the same side of the bracket as the United States in the elimination round, but Spain didn’t enter this tournament assuming they’d need help. As is, they will likely need to win both their remaining games to avoid an embarrassing finish.