OFFICIATING HAS BEEN A ‘TRAVESTY’: NURSE
Canadian coach not impressed with FIBA World Cup referees
There isn’t a lot about the officiating at this FIBA World Cup that’s made Canada coach Nick Nurse smile, but the outburst from the Lithuanian head coach on Saturday night managed to do just that.
Dainius Adomaitis didn’t leave quietly when Lithuania’s tournament ended with a loss to France on Saturday night.
The fiery head coach took the podium post-game and launched into a tirade about the lack of capable officiating in the tournament. Still livid over the refereeing in a loss to Australia that prevented them from winning the Group of Death, Adomaitis then looked on helplessly as officials botched an obvious goaltending infraction on Frenchman Rudy Gobert as he connected with the rim while knocking away a free throw that would have given Lithuania a lead in the dying seconds of their game.
Instead, France took the ball the other way and sealed the game with a Nando de Colo bucket.
The Lithuanians sent an official protest to FIBA, which reviewed the play and admitted a mistake was made. FIBA’s response was to remove the officials for the remainder of tournament, but that won’t change the result for Lithuania, a team that’s been together for two months preparing for this tournament.
Adomaitis had his say before he left, calling the officiating at the FIBA level a “joke.”
Nurse seemed to be in full agreement with Adomaitis’ assertions.
“It’s awesome,” Canada’s head coach said. “He’s 100 per cent right. It’s a travesty, most of it. We’ve (Canada) had the same ref three games in a row (Bulgarian Martin Horozov).
“There are 84 countries that they draw from for referees and we’ve had the same ref three games in a row?”
STILL KEEPING TABS
Nurse and his team are 12 full hours ahead of everything going on back home, but that didn’t keep him from catching the final set of Canadian tennis sensation Bianca Andreescu’s U.S. Open title win earlier Sunday morning while he was in Shanghai.
“I watched it this morning,” Nurse said. “The texts had already started coming in and I was like, ‘I’ve got to check in on CNN or whatever.’ I switched it, it was on, the second set was just starting, so I got to watch it.”
Nurse was impressed with Andreescu’s fight.
“Yeah, awesome. Everybody’s excited and it was really good to see her take the charge and kind of reassert herself at the end. It was great,” Nurse said. “She’s got some swag.”
Asked about assertions that Andreescu’s win might trump the Raptors’ NBA championship run in terms of Canadian high points for the year, Nurse wouldn’t take the bait.
“I think they’re both great, I don’t think you have to pick either one,” he said. “I just think it’s really cool. And I know she’s going to get a lot of love. If it’s anything like what we’ve got, she’s going to get a lot of love for years to come.”
LOOKING AHEAD TO GERMANY
The focus of the German team throughout the tournament has been scoring point guard Dennis Schroder. Nurse said it’s no secret who Canada’s weapon against Schroder will be.
“Obviously, Cory (Joseph) is one of our better defenders, certainly on the perimeter,” Nurse said. “Certainly (Schroder) is a focal point with super quickness and super speed that we’ve got to worry about and we’ll have to have multiple coverages ready for him and multiple defenders ready for him, like with any great player, really.”
But while the focus on Germany is at the point guard position, their bigs — including NBA players Daniel Theis (Boston) and Max Kleber (Dallas) — pose a problem as well.
“We’ll have to focus on the rebounding and just the overall fighting for the ball within eight to 10 feet of the basket,” said Nurse.
QUICK HITS
Canada has lost its last 20 games against a European team at the FIBA World Cup. Its last win against a team from Europe was in 1986 against the Netherlands ... Germany has lost eight of its last nine games played against teams from the Americas at the World Cup. mganter@postmedia.com