Tokyo 2020: Nigeria’s D’Tigers suffer second defeat to Germany

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Nigeria’s senior men’s basketball team, D’Tigers, suffered another disappointing defeat to Germany in their second Group B match at the ongoing delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan in the early hours of Wednesday.

After their 84- 67 defeat to the Boomers of Australia in the opening game t
The Mike Brown-led side were hoping to bounce back in their second game but fell apart in the fourth quarter and narrowly lost 92-97 points to the German.

The German won the first quarter 21-24 but the Nigerians edged the German 29-26 points in the second quarter to tie the points 50-50 at half-time (50-50) and at the end of the third quarter (74-74) making it a frantic fourth quarter where Germany took the game beyond D’Tigers.

Speaking after the match, Coach Mike Brown blamed his side’s poor defence for the defeat.

“Our main identity is we felt like we were a good defensive team coming into this tournament and our guys had done a tremendous job on that side of the ball. But it’s going to be tough to beat anybody when you don’t defend. We did not do a good job defending, 47 percent from the three-point line, on top of that you have 23 free throws… It’s tough to overcome.

“We talked about defending the three-point line against these guys, talked about not sending them to the free throw line, and we talked about taking care of the ball. And 18 turnovers weren’t bad, but because a handful of those were offensive fouls, we have to be smarter in that area. But the way that we defended, it is just not who we are,” Brown lamented.

D’Tigers last group match is against Italy.

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