Lebanese basketball team continues his preparations

Lebanese national basketball team continues his preparations for his attending participation in Fiba Asia Basketball Championship, which will be held between 6 and 16 of August, in Tianjin, China, where the first three at the end of championship will qualify to Fiba world cup 2010 in Turkey.

For that, Lebanon has participated in a friendly tournament which took place in Qatar, between 1 and 5 of July, beside the host team, Iran, Asian title holder, and Egypt.

Iran-Lebanon

The first game against Iran who won 79-73 (Q1: 29-21, Q2: 47-40, Q3: 61-63, Q4: 73-79). It was ve rytough game, especially that the both teams are classified between the favorites to win the next Fiba Asia. Lebanese team missed Matt Freije and Daniel Faris, who did not join yet the N.T, while Iran missed her NBA giant Hamed Hadaddi and his fellow hamed Islamieh.

Lebanon dominated the first two quarters, and showed some good basketball, since it’s the first real preparation game, although, Lebanon faced, a big lack under the basket, with the absence of a real center, which will be a big problem for Lebanon head coach, the Serbian Dragan Raca, especially, that two of the best Lebanese centers, Muttahed’s player Roy Smaha, and Riyadi’s player Hussien Tawbe, are suffering from injuries.

By the beginning of the second half, the Persian team bounced back, while their competitors performance turned down, whether in offense and defense, and the Iranians succeed to score lot of basket s from inside and outside, with a great performance of their playmaker Mehdi Kamrani (13 pts, 6 assists), and their forward Smad Nikha (28 pts), while the Lebanese players were completely lost, with absence of a real system, and only Brian Beshara (13 Pts, 4Rbds, 4 Ass), performed good, despite that the best scorers were Fadi El Khatib (24 Pts, 6 Rbds) who was clear that he suffered an increasing in weight, and the new naturalized Jackson Vroman (21 Pts, 7Rbds).

Qatar-Lebanon

The second game was against Qatar, one of strongest team in Asia, who played in the last world cup that took place in Japan. Our N.T, missed Fadi El Khatib who left the team due to a personal reason, but despite that, we played a very good game, comparing to the first one, and we succeeded to achieve a big victory 85-70 (Q1: 21-20, Q2: 44-33,Q3: 66-52,Q4: 85-70).

The Cedar’s team, showed a balance in offense and defense, and reached a very high performance, especially with Brian Beshara (25Pts, 5 Rbds, 3Ass), and Jackson Vroman (29 Pts, 8Rbds, 4 Ass), Jean Abedel Nour (10 Pts, 2 Rbds) and Elie Rostom on defense (3 Pts, 6 Rbds).
Dragan Raca, gave the chance for all players, except to California Baptitst university’s player, Omar Krayem and Champville’s player Elie Stephan.

Egypt-Lebanon

In the last game, we missed Brian and Vroman, and it was a real catastrophe, not for the result, (71-54) but for the low level that we have showed, with the exception of the second quarter.
Quickly, the Egyptians, who are a mix team between veterans and youth players, dominate the first quarter, and finished it with 11 points deference, 19-8.

At the second quarter, Raca gave the chance for the reserve talent, Tolsa univerity’s player Bassel Bawji (19 years old), who really made a big turning point and led the team to bouncing back, by his excellent timing on rebound, offensively and defensively, and great scoring percentage, whether from inside or outside.

At the beginning of the second half, Raca took a strange decision and substituted Bassel and Ali Mahmoud, giving the leadership for Rony Fahed, who looks far away from his real performance. Once again Egypt dominated, and so fast created a gap of 17 points, while the Lebanese were totally absent, whether offensively and defensively.

The fourth quarter nothing change, the Lebanese supporters who accompanied our N.T in his three games, were disappointed although if it’s a preparations games, stopped shouting and encouraging, their players, and all the Raca’s substitutions were failed, and Lebanon faced the second defeat in this friendly tournament 71-54.