In the best performance, out of all the teams, on Day 1 of the Eurobasket, Greece literally destroyed FYROM, beating their neighbours 86-54.
Jonas Kazlauskas had promised more attractive and quicker basketball from the Day 1 since he took over the Greek NT and quick and attractive game we saw from Greece. With Spanoulis running the point, Bouroussis dominating the paint and with quick transitions the Greek NT left no room for FYROM to even breath, let alone challenge them.
11 of the 12 (everyone) Greek players used managed to score with team's captain Antonis Fotsis being the sole exception while FYROM's coach Arsic suprised everyone by not starting their biggest star, Jeremiah Massey.
The enthusiasm by the Greek performance was so big that the 80 Greek fans who were at the stands outshouted the 1000 fans of FYROM.
Greece 86-54 FYROM
Greece: Kalampokis 5, Bouroussis 11, Zisis 8, Spanoulis 17, Calathes 4, Fotsis, Printezis 6, Glyniadakis 5, Kaimakoglou 3, Koufos 6, Perperoglou 10, Schortsianitis 11
FYROM: V. Stefanov 3, R. Stefanov 2, Mirakovski 3, Blazevski, V. Stojanovski 6, Gechevski 9, Tasovski, Antic 9, D. Stojanoski 2, Samardziski 8, Massey 12
Games quotes:
Kazlauskas (Greece): "I'm very happy how we started this game and competition. It was the best game we played so far since we started the preparation. We never relaxed and continued until the last seconds to play with intensity, and that's the best part of our game today."
Arsic (FYROM): "Our defense wasn't good enough and without good defense we can't beat anybody, not only Greece. Simply Greek team is much-much better than us."
Jeremiah Massey (FYROM): "We played terrible basketball. That was horrible. Without defense one cannot play against Greece. They taught us how to play modern basketball. We can play better."
Nick Calathes (Greece): "That was a really good game, we were a team – solid in defense and effective in attack. Now, we are waiting for Croatia – that will be a really exciting match. They play really good, but today we have proven that we can achieve a lot in Eurobasket."
