Wednesday, September 12, 2007

RAPTORS: ANDREA, AZZURRI FEELING BLUE

Raptor Land has the rundown on what happened today at the Eurobasket -- again, it's too bad that no broadcaster on this side of the Atlantic could have picked it up.

The big news is Andrea Bargnani and Italy are done -- no chance of even being in the last-chance Olympic qualifier next year -- after losing to Germany today. Dirk Nowitzki did it to Bargs again, sort of. Italy's scores suggests it played a slowdown game, less than ideal for a big man who works best in a motion offence like the Raptors'.

Dirk and his mates play Spain in a quarter-final on Friday, so Jose Calderon and Jorge Garbajosa can avenge Andrea's setback. Nice little tidbit from ESPN.com's basketball guy, Chris Sheridan: Greece was a 14 1/2-point favourite against overmatched Portugal the other day. With a few seconds left, Greece was up 17 points and fouled intentionally so Portugal couldn't toss in a three-pointer and cover the spread, thus costing all the bettors back at home. Greece won by 18.

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