Greece players and their coach admitted that Spain were the better prepared team as Spain defeated the Greeks 70-47 in the final of the FIBA World Championship.
The easy way to sum up the FIBA world championship is to list the medal winners, from gold to bronze _ Spain, Greece, and the United States.
With injured Pau Gasol cheering his teammates from the bench, Spain beat Greece 70-47 Sunday to claim its first basketball world championship.
The European champions are playing for a much bigger prize. The best the United States can hope for is yet another bronze medal.
Spain scraped into the final of the world basketball championship for the first time on Friday but look to have paid a devastating price in the process.
A 4.8-magnitude earthquake jolted the Tokyo region on Thursday during halftime of the Lithuania-Turkey game in the FIBA championships.
Now that Dirk Nowitzki is gone, the United States is headed for a gold medal game showdown with Spain or Argentina.
Pau Gasol, Spain's leading scorer and rebounder who was injured in the final minutes of a semifinal victory over Argentina, still hopes to play in the gold-medal game against Greece on Sunday night in the FIBA world championships.
France and Turkey came out on top of two thrilling classification games and will now go head to head on Saturday to claim fifth place.
Greek center Sofoklis Schortsanitis, better known as "Baby Shaq", sees a great opportunity in his team's semi-final showdown Friday with the United States at the World Basketball Championship.
US stars know they must improve to beat Greece on Friday and qualify for Sunday's World Basketball Championship final, where either 2004 Olympic champion Argentina or title-hungry Spain will await.
The United States are doing more than winning games as they close in on reclaiming the gold medal at the world basketball championship.
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