Spain gets unlikely assist in run to EuroBasket title

Pau Gasol was the deserved and unanimous choice Dennis Rodman Womens Jersey as the MVP of EuroBasket 2015 as Spain marched to their third EuroBasket title in six years Sunday with an 80-63 destruction of Lithuania.

The team's assist leader, according to head coach Sergio Scariolo? A guy who wasn't on the floor, nor even on the bench. Marcos Fernandez, the team's director of inspiration and the cultivator of dreams.

With curtains drawn, it was 50 days ago in a meeting room in Madrid that Scariolo pressed play on a film that set the tone for the remarkable and unexpected journey ahead, a compilation tape designed to remind his players of what their country had accomplished and what still might be within reach.
Fernandez, the team's video analyst, was given Paul O'Neill Womens Jersey a clear script from his producer and asked to bring it to life on the screen at the very outset of an international campaign when Spain -- without so many of its established stars -- was predicted to regress into the realms of the forgotten rather than forging a campaign that will be remembered for a long time.

"We put together team basketball, some important plays, not amazing highlights but ones that won us games or got us to a podium," Scariolo said. "European Championships. The Olympic Games in London. And also we put some film of these guys when they were kids.

"Because my message was that: 'The past few years, we've had this status; we must do this, we must do that'. I wanted us to go back to when they were starting out. Playing in junior tournaments at the beginning of their career, when they were enjoying basketball. Back to where it was so hard to accomplish things."

They had to fight. To scrap. To endure the Reilly Smith Youth Jersey heart-stopping tension in the closing seconds of the first round in Berlin when Germany's point guard Dennis Schroder went to the foul line with three attempts to force overtime, only to fall short. It was do or die, but they survived. "We had three finals: Germany, which was so important," recounted Nikola Mirotic. Then elimination games, one after another. "Greece. France. All the team was growing every single time which was amazing."

Fernandez's services were in demand. Sometimes, the opinion of the odds makers differed but Spain was not favored, at the start, even near the finish. No Marc Gasol. No Jose Calderon. No Ricky Rubio. No hope. Hence, more nights at the movie theater.
"Four days ago, ahead of playing France, I played the scene in 'The Pursuit of Happyness' where Will Smith's character is talking to his kid and saying: 'Don't let anybody say you can't do something,'" Scariolo said. "Yesterday, I played a scene from 'The Million Dollar Baby.' I was concerned they were thinking: 'We have to win'. I wanted them to remember what it takes to win."
It took two minutes and 23 seconds in the final for his players to signal that the subtle message had hit home, when Lithuania coach Jonas Kazlauskas was forced to take a timeout with his team already on the ropes. Spain's ball movement was dazzling, its defense straight out of Hollywood.

In the first quarter, they had forced seven http://www.authenticrangersshop.com/authentic-30-henrik-lundqvist-j... turnovers. By the time Gasol threw down one more dunk in the second, their advantage was 34-18. The punches kept coming. By the time Gasol threw one arm into the air when he drained a 3-pointer to round off his haul of 25 points and 12 rebounds, the knockout was all but declared.