FIBA World Cup: Giannis Antetokounmpo powers Greece to opening win
Day two wins for France, Australia and defending champions USA
Sunday 1 September 2019 16:30, UK
Giannis Antetokounmpo needed only 16 minutes on court to power Greece to an emphatic win over Montenegro in their opening FIBA World Cup game.
Greece 85-60 Montenegro
Greece displayed wire-to-wire dominance as they trounced Montenegro 85-60 for their first Group F victory at the FIBA World Cup, with Giannis Antetokounmpo producing plenty of highlights despite playing limited minutes.
Antetokounmpo needed just 16 minutes to collect a near double-double of 10 points, eight rebounds, two steals and a block.
Both the Greeks and Montenegrins started slowly, combining for only seven points in the first five minutes of play, but it was Hellas that seized the momentum to take a 17-9 lead after the first period.
Greece never looked back as they limited Montenegro to just seven points in the second quarter to blow their lead up to 26 points at the half and seal the win.
It took some time for Greece's two-way dominance to finally kick in. Thanks to a couple of steals and great rebounding, the Greeks rattled off 10 straight points, mostly in transition, to race to their first double-digit lead, 15-4, after a Georgios Printezis fast-break dunk. Montenegro would never recover after that scoring burst.
France 78-74 Germany
Evan Fournier scored a game-high 26 points and made two clutch free throws in the final seconds of the fourth quarter to seal a narrow 78-74 victory for France against Germany.
Making his World Cup debut, Amath M'Baye contributed 21 points for France while Rudy Gobert provided nine points, nine rebounds and five blocks.
Germany had two 20+ point scorers of their own - Johannes Voigtmann scoring 25 and Dennis Schroder adding 23 - and reduced a 16-point half-time deficit to two points in the final moments but Fournier had the final say from the free-throw line.
Czech Republic 67-88 USA
Donovan Mitchell scored a team-high 16 points as Team USA opened their defence of the FIBA World Cup with a dominant 88-67 victory over the Czech Republic.
Harrison Barnes (14 points), Jayson Tatum (10 points, four rebounds) and Kemba Walker (13 points, four assists) scored in double figures for the Americans who seized control of the game in the second quarter, outscoring their opponents 26-15 to establish a 14-point half-time lead.
Tomas Satoransky scored a game-high 17 points and handed out five assists for the Czechs.
Senegal 47-101 Lithuania
Lithuania opened their World Cup campaign with a bang, leading from start to finish in a comfortable 101-47 win over Senegal.
Lithuania became the sixth team in triple digits in China, after Serbia, Italy, Spain, Australia and Brazil. The entire FIBA Basketball World Cup 2014 had six 100-plus point games.
It was one-way traffic from the start of the game, as Marius Grigonis hit an And-1 on the first play.
Domantas Sabonis, Mantas Kalnietis and Jonas Valanciunas all joined the fun to make it a 13-2 game after three minutes, and Senegal never got closer than nine points after that.
Kalnietis had 13 points and eight assists, winning the TCL Player of the Game award. Valanciunas (13 points, 11 rebounds), Sabonis (13 points, seven rebounds) were also among seven Lithuania players to contribute double-figure scoring.
Canada 92-108 Australia
Matthew Dellavedova scored 24 points and the Boomers opened the fourth quarter with a huge run to pull away and beat Canada 108-92 on Sunday in a Group H opener at Dongguan.
"Good to start the tournament with a win," Australia's Chris Goulding said. "Our first half, we showed we can do some really good stuff."
Goulding scored 16, Patty Mills had 15 and Joe Ingles finished with 13 points and nine assists for Australia. Andrew Bogut added 12 points on 6-of-7 shooting and grabbed nine rebounds for the winners.
Khem Birch scored 18 for Canada and Cory Joseph scored 16.
Canada's lead was 77-76 going into the fourth quarter, but the last 10 minutes were all Australia. An 8-0 run by the Aussies put them on top for good and they wound up outscoring the Canadians 28-6 over the first 8:44 of the final period.
The loss puts Canada in a likely must-win scenario against Lithuania on Tuesday.
New Zealand 94-102 Brazil
Brazil outscored New Zealand 28-12 in the third quarter and held on to win a Group F opener in Nanjing.
Leandro Barbosa led Brazil with 22 points. Corey Webster scored 19 for New Zealand.
Turkey 86-67 Japan
In Shanghai, Turkey got their Group E schedule started with a wire-to-wire win over Japan thanks to 17 points apiece from Ersan Ilyasova and Melih Mahmutoglu.
Rui Hachimura scored 15 points for Japan as did Nick Fazekas.
Dominican Republic 80-76 Jordan
In Shenzhen, Victor Liz scored 15 points to lead the Dominican Republic to a Group G win. Ahmad Al Dwairi had 34 points and 10 rebounds for Jordan, for whom Dar Tucker contributed 24 points.
Jordan were down by 16 points late in the third quarter, then pulled into a 64-64 tie early in the fourth after a 22-6 run.
Jordan took a pair of one-point leads late, but the Dominicans finished them off with a late 7-2 run.
