South Sudan’s senior national basketball team got off to a good start the Paris 2024 championship, with a great and also convincing victory against the Puerto Rican team with a score of 90-79.
“We followed our game plan, playing fast and physical, defending, getting many offensive rebounds.“This is like a movie, to debut at the Games and win. It’s unreal,” were the impressions of South Sudan’s coach, American and former NBA player Royal Ivey.
The “refugee gang”, as the team made up of players calls itself Coming from all four corners of the world, they made their debut at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games with a choral cast, five players scoring over ten points in total, something quite important to have achieved victory in Paris: Carlik Jones (19), Nuni Omot (12), Bul Kuol (12), Marial Shayok (15) and Peter Jok (11).
“This defeat definitely hurts, but nothing can be done… Now we have We have to do a better job, we have to defend, we were the best defense in the playoffs, we have to get it back,” said Puerto Rican point guard Gian Clavell, who used the word “blessing” as the definition of being able to be present and represent his beloved ‘Island of Enchantment’ (Puerto Rico), in Paris 2024.
Puerto Rico was playing very well for much of the match, including The advantage he had and the way he was dominating the match made it very painful to finally lose it.
“No matter what happened, we were going to be blessed to be here. We are “We are grateful to everyone and to the fans who came,” said Clavell, acknowledging the large number of Puerto Rican fans who were present in the stands of the city of Lille, a sub-venue for the men’s basketball championship at the Olympic event.
“But it hurts, it hurts. Now we have to regroup and keep fighting,” was Clavell’s final reflection.
Two versions of the Puerto Rico National Team
Offensively, the Puerto Rican national team had two very strong halves. different and distant from each other. They managed to score 54 points in the first half and 25 in total in the second. The Puerto Ricans finished shooting 24-14 from the free throw line and 68-27 from the field.
But the offense was not the factor in the defeat, something that manager Nelson recognized. Colón, but the inability on the boards, especially on the defensive side: “They took 18 offensive rebounds from us. That’s too much at this level to try to close a gap and get back into the game,” said coach Nelson Colón.
South Sudan outscored Puerto Rico 24-2 on second-chance shots, a decisive fact that at the end of the day ended up pushing the African team to achieve the first Olympic victory in its history.
“We came out hard. We competed. We gave our best for 40 minutes. The “Basketball is like that. Sometimes you have a plan and things don’t flow. Defensively, we were there. Offensively we scored, although we got a little desperate when the ball didn’t go in. But in the long run, when I look at the numbers, offensive rebounds were the key in their game,” said Nelson Colón.
South Sudan came out pretty battered, having to deal with an 8-0 from the start. Puerto Rico, for its part, started off confidently, led by its best player, NBA player José Alvarado, who was able to score a total of 19 points in the first half of the game.
But with three seconds left in the half the ‘great thief’ twisted his ankle, which undoubtedly set off alarm bells throughout Puerto Rico. He went to the locker room held by two members of the technical team of the ‘Island of Enchantment’, and the worst was expected. Fortunately for the Latin team, Alvarado returned in the second half of the match and did not diminish his plan to be a key scorer.
But South Sudan recovered and was able to turn the score around to take the lead. in the match for the first time. Totally superior and without any question in rebounding and successful in three-pointers in that stretch, the African team began the last quarter with a minimal lead (71-69) that they increased until the incontestable final victory.
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