Spain sinks Puerto Rico; Scola shines for Argentina

Spain celebrated its second successive win at the basketball World Cup in China after a commanding performance from Toronto Raptors centre Marc Gasol gave the team a 73-63 win over plucky Puerto Rico on Monday.

Serbia, the tournament favourites alongside holders United States, also made it two out of two with a 126-67 demolition of the Philippines, while 39-year-old forward Luis Scola rolled back the years in Argentina’s 94-81 defeat of Nigeria.

Spain struggled against a physical Puerto Rican side in the first half before Gasol, who won the 2019 NBA title with the Raptors, nailed 11 points in the third quarter for the 2006 world champions.

Gasol finished with a game-high 19 points, Phoenix Suns playmaker Ricky Rubio added 17 and guard Sergio Llull netted all of his nine points in the second half.

Scola, who moved to China in 2017 after a 10-year career at five different NBA clubs, amassed 23 points and 10 rebounds as Argentina overpowered the Nigerians.

A slow start by Serbia allowed the Philippines to take an early 9-7 lead but the 2014 tournament’s runners-up quickly got into their stride and engineered a 62-35 lead at halftime.

“Our players did their job,” said Serbia coach Aleksandar Djordjevic.

The Italians brushed aside Angola 92-61 and Tunisia revelled in their first World Cup victory after downing Iran 79-67 on the back of 22 points and 15 rebounds by towering centre Salah Mejri.

Poland ground out a 79-76 win over hosts China, Russia eased past South Korea 87-73 and Venezuela kept alive their hopes of reaching the second group stage of the 32-nation tournament with an 8771 defeat of Ivory Coast.