Parker, France too much for Argentina

In what seemed like an intrasquad San Antonio Spurs scrimmage. France’s depth ended up winning 71-64 over Argentina’s star power at only a handful of positions.

France lead early on and Argentina would be looking to close the gap the rest of the way. Even after Argentina found ways to even the game up with free throws or three-pointers, France seemed to always answer back.

For Argentina, they had good performances from Manu Ginobili and Luis Scola, but didn’t get much help elsewhere while France had five players in double figures.

Aside from having issues with France’s depth, as Ginobili eluded to in his Olympics journal on ChanchaLlena, France’s big front line, especially Kevin Seraphin, gave Argentina major fits early on.

After struggling against the United States, Tony Parker bounced back with a big game, and he was key late in the game when Argentina tried to make their last comeback attempts.

Here’s how the Spurs representation on both teams did.

Manu Ginobili

Ginobili did all he could to try to keep Argentina undefeated. He finished with 26 points and five rebounds in a losing effort. While he had some help from Luis Scola, the eight other players on the team only accounted for 22 points. Carlos Delfino fell off quite a bit from his last game and was 1-of-8 for four points. Still, Ginobili attacked France’s defense to penetrate, got to the free-throw line and knocked down three key three-pointers.

Tony Parker

As I said above, Parker certainly bounced back, leading France in scoring with 17 points and dishing out five assists. While Parker, who is admittedly a few steps slower and out of game shape due to surgery that kept him out of action, had some trouble with USA’s quicker guards, he drew Pablo Prigioni today. Parker didn’t do so well from long range, but he found a way to get into the teeth of Argentina’s defense and either scoring or getting to the line, where he hit 90 percent of his shots.

Boris Diaw

Diaw was a big part of France’s early start. He, along with Seraphin and Rony Turiaf formed a formidable trio in the front court. Diaw fouled out of the game with two points, six rebounds and three assists.

Nando De Colo

While De Colo’s stats don’t exactly jump off the page, he impressed me throughout the game. He is much faster on both ends of the floor as I remember from last summer, his stroke from outside is very fluid and he was very active throughout the game. Stat-wise, he chipped in 11 points and added four rebounds and two assists in just 20 minutes. His strength is still his outside shot, where he hit 50 percent of his shots, but I’m breathing a little easier at having yet another combo guard. While it’s just one game, it appears De Colo has the size and the shooting stroke to play extended minutes at shooting guard, and his speed, as Ginobili saw firsthand today, will be good enough to stay in front of smaller point guards.