USA got their second win of the tournament in the first match of day two of the wheelchair basketball at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games against a strong German opposition.
The first quarter saw both teams battle hard and Germany were able to respond to USA’s offence, leaving them trailing by just two baskets at the end of the quarter, however, the USA changed their tactics in the second quarter and turned on a defensive press which the German’s struggled to get out of. USA were clinical in offence and in the second and third quarters they went on a 45-25 cumulative run (24-15 in the second and 21-10 in the third).
The United States maintained its advantage in the fourth to take home a 25-point victory. 77 -52.
USA player, Brian Bell, said “It’s a great win for us. Germany are an awesome team so we knew it was always going to be a battle. At the beginning it was tough to get started but once we started to refine some of the stuff we needed to do it showed out there.
“It was a very good team performance, everyone got minutes, everyone got rotations, everyone who came in did exactly what they needed to do and we got through it.
“Now we are going to keep working on the things we need to work on the things we need to fix and take every game little by little.”
German player, Thomas Bohme, said, “The first quarter we played pretty good, but then they pressed us so we struggled a little bit and gave away too many turnovers and it’s hard to come back against such a tough team like the USA.
“It’s getting hard now, but we still have three games to go and if we win all three we are in with a chance.”
For full match statistics click here https://www.rio2016.com/en/paralympics/wheelchair-basketball-mens-group-b-preliminary-wb-7
