Turkoglu has 20 as Turkey ousts France
September 5, 2010
ISTANBUL (AP)—Turkey used a 21-4 run spanning the second and third quarters onSunday to eliminate France from the basketball world championship with a 95-77win.
Phoenix Suns forward Hedo Turkoglu(notes) scored 20 points and Sinan Guler added 17for Turkey, which played its first tournament game in the new Sinan Erdem Dome.A nearly capacity crowd of 15,000—including 22 members of Turkey’s nationalfootball squad sitting courtside—watched the home team make shoot 35 of 55from the field in the round of 16 game.
Turkey’s reward is to play Slovenia on Wednesday in the quarterfinals.
“Everybody knows the fans in Turkey are loud,” France’s Boris Diaw(notes) said.The red-clad masses didn’t disappoint in this one, constantly cheering theirteam from before the tipoff through Guler’s layup at about three minutes left inthe first half to put Turkey up 32-24.
Turkoglu, who more than doubled his points-per-game average from Turkey’sfive preliminary round wins, then sparked the decisive run as he flashed thesame point forward skills that helped propel his former NBA team, the OrlandoMagic, into the 2009 NBA Finals.
He drove past Diaw and whipped a pass over Ali Traore to a diving Oguz Savasfor a layup. Savas was fouled on the shot and made the free throw. On Turkey’snext possession, Turkoglu drove around France’s defense again, this time for alayup of his own.
“We did make mistakes, especially on defense. We missed our defensiverotations two or three times and gave them easy layups,” French coach VincentCollet said.
The Turks took a 43-28 into halftime, then scored ten straight points -including back-to-back Turkoglu threes – to open up the second half.
“At this time it was almost over,” Collet said.
About the only bad news for the Turks came with 5:13 left in the third, whenguard Kerem Tunceri apparently hurt his right foot in a collsion with Nando deColo(notes) and limped off the court with help from teammates.
By the end of the third quarter, the game had taken on more the feeling of afiesta than competition. The Turkish players slapped hands, chest bumped andsmiled as they went to the bench for the break, and the crowd chanted and didthe wave. Not even two consecutive Batum dunks to close the gap to 71-49 earlyin the fourth quarter stopped their singing.
Turkey made nine of 19 three-pointers, while France made 12 of 24, butscored ten fewer field goals.
Diaw, who plays for the Charlotte Bobcats, scored 21 points. De Colo added15 for France, which had started strong in the preliminary round with threestraight wins but fell to its group’s fourth-seeded spot after losing its lasttwo games. Collett said he wished France could have played other teams fromTurkey’s preliminary round group.
“It would have been better to play Russia or Greece, but not Turkey thisyear. Not this Turkey especially,” Collett said.
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