Thirty-one points in ten minutes
Australia never got to play their game. Spain put 31 points on the board in the opening quarter at Berlin Arena on Thursday night and the World Cup quarter-final was settled long before anyone reached the fourth. Final score 89-66.
The numbers behind that opening spell are brutal. Spain strung together a 16-0 run, built a lead that peaked at 24, and spent 37 minutes and 24 seconds of the 40 in front. Australia led for 85 seconds in total. There was one lead change all night.
Steph Talbot did what she could. The Australian forward finished with 23 points, more than anyone else on the floor, and found no support that mattered. Her team gave the ball away 23 times. Spain collected 13 steals from that mess and ran the other way with most of them.
Try it for $0.99.
Florez runs it without scoring much
Alicia Florez took the player of the game award with 10 points, five rebounds and four assists. That is not a scoring line. It is a control line, and it fits what Spain did all evening.
Spain shot 48 percent from the field against 40 for Australia, and the gap widened inside the arc, 52.3 percent to 41.4. From three the two sides were level, 38.1 against 37.9. Spain also lived at the free-throw line and made 19 of their 22 attempts. Australia shot 90 percent from there and barely got the chance to use it.
The one stretch that belonged to Australia arrived after half-time. Spain managed just 12 points in the third quarter, their worst of the night, and the Opals edged it 14-12. It changed nothing. Spain had already banked 58 points by the interval against 37, so a quarter they lost still left them 19 clear going into the fourth.
The United States are next
The reward is the hardest draw in the building. Spain face the United States in Saturday’s semi-final, against a side that hung 108 points on Hungary in their own quarter-final and set a record for the round doing it. Germany and France meet in the other half, tipping off at 14:30.
Australia fly home. The 8,619 in Berlin watched a team shoot respectably and lose by 23 anyway, which points straight back at the turnover column. Hand over possession 23 times at this level and the scoreboard stops negotiating.
Discover the rest of our sports news on MathODDS!
in your pocket.
Real-time notifications & alerts
Leave a Reply