FIBA World Cup: Spain routs Argentina for 2nd World Cup title

Coming into the FIBA World Cup, Spain wasn’t one of the picks to click should Team USA falter, but with a 95-75 win Sunday, the world’s No. 2 team took gold.

Watchers of the FIBA World Cup should have seen it coming.

With a USA Basketball entry that was short most of the country’s top talent, several teams were tabbed as potential successors should Team USA falter.

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Serbia, with All-NBA big man Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets and scoring star Bogdan Bogdanovic of the Sacramento Kings, was a trendy pick.

France, sporting two-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz and other solid NBA talent, was under consideration.

Even Greece, because of the presence of NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks, was picked by many as a dark horse. Virtually ignored in all the pre-FIBA World Cup hoopla, however, was Spain. The veteran-laden squad that has medaled at each of the last three Olympics entered the tournament ranked No. 2 in the FIBA World Rankings, but lacked the pure star power of some of the other squads.

Team USA did falter, losing to France in the quarterfinals. But Serbia also faltered, taken down by Argentina in the quarterfinals. France then lost to Argentina in the semifinals.

Greece? Didn’t even get out of the second round.

Spain, meanwhile, had survived a couple of scares early in the tournament. The Spaniards needed a 13-3 run in the final 4:13 of the fourth quarter to beat Iran in the first round. Against Italy to open the second round, Spain trailed by four with 4:21 to go before closing with a 15-4 kick to win.

In the semifinals, Spain needed two overtimes for a come-from-behind win over Australia.

But in Sunday’s FIBA World Cup final, Spain was dominant, hammering Argentina 95-75 for its second world championship, becoming the fifth nation to win the event more than once (USA, Yugoslavia, Soviet Union and Brazil are the others).

In the process, Marc Gasol of the Toronto Raptors — who scored 14 points with seven rebounds and seven assists in 25 minutes of action — became just the second player to couple an NBA title with a World Cup gold medal in the same year.

Lamar Odom, who doubled up with the Los Angeles Lakers and Team USA in 2010, was the first.

Spain got out to an early double-digit lead, opening the game 14-2 burst, and held off Argentina — which never led — from wire to wire.

And while the Spaniards rang up 95 points in the game, it was their defense that set the tone and carried them to the title.

Argentina, which had averaged 87.6 points per game leading up to the final, scored just 31 in the first half and 47 through three quarters before the pace of the game picked up in the fourth period.

The Argentinians were held to 36.1 percent shooting (22-for-61) overall and made only 7-of-27 from 3-point range (25.9 percent).

Spain did a particularly good job of defending against 39-year-old Luis Scola, Argentina’s leading scorer in the tournament, and the facilitator of the Argentinian attack, point guard Facundo Campazzo.

Campazzo scored 11 points and had eight assists, but was just 2-for-11 from the floor and 1-of-5 from deep. Scola was held to eight points on 1-of-10 shooting and had a team-best eight rebounds.

Spain shot 47.7 percent (31-for-65) on the night, while making just 6-of-20 (30 percent) from deep. Ricky Rubio of the Phoenix Suns led six Spaniards in double figures with 20 points to go with seven rebounds. We won’t mention the three assists to six turnovers … thing.

Sergio Llull added 15 points, while Rudy Fernandez had 11 — as did the brother combination of Juan Hernangomez of the Nuggets and Willy Hernandez of the Charlotte Hornets. Fernandez added a game-high 10 rebounds.

Spain’s interior defense was rugged all game long, with Gasol and Willy Hernangomez recording three blocks apiece.

Super sub Gabriel Deck scored 24 points to try and keep Argentina in it, while Nicolas Laprovittola came off the bench to score 17 points.

Rubio was named FIBA World Cup MVP, per NBA.com’s John Schuhmann, and was joined by Gasol on the All-Star Five (all-tournament), along with Scola, France’s Evan Fournier of the Orlando Magic and Bogdanovic from Serbia, which won the fifth-place game on Saturday.

In the tournament’s lone rematch, France reversed its 100-98 loss to Australia in the second round, coming back from 15 points down to beat the Boomers for the bronze medal 67-59.

Australia came undone in the second half and committed 19 turnovers in the game and was a bit short-handed up front. Aron Baynes of the Suns, who had started the first seven games of the tournament for the Boomers, was limited to 13 minutes off the bench because of a strained groin.

Les Bleus shook off a terrible first half, during which they shot only 25 percent and scored 21 points, and turned up the heat after intermission.

An adjustment to move Charlotte’s Nicolas Batum to the 4 while going small paid off, as Gobert was largely ineffective on Sunday, finishing with two points, four rebounds and four fouls in just 19 minutes.

Nando De Colo led the attack for France with 19 points, while Fournier finished with 16 on a tough shooting day, going just 5-for-17.

Vincent Poirier of the Boston Celtics got 21 minutes in place of Gobert and finished with eight points and seven rebounds, while Batum anchored the defense with three steals.

Joe Ingles of the Jazz scored 17 points to lead Australia, while Patty Mills of the San Antonio Spurs — a focal point of the French defense — was held to 15 on 6-of-12 shooting. Andrew Bogut got the start at center, but managed five points, six rebounds and four turnovers in 25 minutes.

France outscored Australia 46-29 in the second half after trailing at the break 30-21.

Seven nations punched automatic tickets to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo by finishing at the top of their respective zones.

Spain and France earned the two automatic bids from FIBA Europe, with the USA and Argentina locking down the two automatic berths from FIBA Americas.

Australia got the FIBA Oceania bid, while Nigeria — which finished 17th — was the top finisher from FIBA Africa and Iran, which placed 23rd, got the slot for FIBA Asia.

Japan, as the host, is also locked into the 12-team field.

FIBA will conduct four Olympic qualifying tournaments from July 6-12, each with six teams.

Sixteen of the teams at the FIBA World Cup earned spots in the qualifying tournament, with FIBA to announce the remaining eight at a later date.

The qualifying tournament bids went to the following teams (finish at the FIBA World Cup in parentheses):

Serbia (fifth)
Czech Republic (sixth)
Poland (eighth)
Lithuania (ninth)
Italy (10th)
Greece (11th)
Russia (12th)
Brazil (13th)
Venezuela (14th)
Puerto Rico (15th)
Dominican Republic (16th)
Germany (18th)
New Zealand (19th)
Tunisia (20th)
Canada (21st)
Turkey (22nd)

For the eight remaining spots, there were two teams ranked in the top 10 of the FIBA World Rankings that did not qualify for the FIBA World Cup — No. 7 Slovenia, the defending EuroBasket champions, and No. 9 Croatia.

Other contenders for the remaining places in the qualifying field are Mexico (No. 14), Latvia (No. 15), Ukraine (No. 19), Finland (No. 21), Georgia (No. 26), Montenegro (No. 28), Belgium (No. 29) and China (No. 30).

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The basketball tournament at the Tokyo Olympics will open on July 25 and end on Aug. 9.