Argentina 104, Mexico 83

August 25, 2007 � Las Vegas, Nevada

Argentina defeated Mexico 104-83 to cap day four of action from Thomas & Mack Center on the campus of UNLV. The Argentines improved their record in tournament play to 3-0 while the Mexicans fell to 1-2.

Tied at 23 apiece after one quarter of play, Argentina began to distance itself in the second, thanks to a hot-shooting Paolo Quinteros. The 6�1�� Quinteros tallied 14 points in the period on five-of-seven shooting, helping Argentina build a 51 � 41 lead by halftime.

Argentina�s lead ballooned to 83-59 at the end of the third, and Mexico didn�t get much closer in the final stanza.

Carlos Delfino led Argentina with 20 points while Quinteros added 18. Roberto Beck tallied 24 points for Mexico in defeat.

SERGIO HERNANDEZ, ARGENTINA HEAD COACH
Last year you didn't play zone defense in the World Championship, this year you played zone several minutes. Is that your game plan for this tournament?
No. Today was a special game. Mexico is different. They shoot threes with their big men. Today they started with four perimeter players and one big man; everyone played one on one, everybody shot. With Roman Gonzalez, our big guy, it was very difficult to play man to man. That's why we played the two-three zone. We'll play zone defense only when we need it, but we like to play man-to-man.

Do you practice zone defense?
Of course we practice. We need to practice our offense because Mexico, for example, played zone defense for 35 minutes. If you practice playing against zone defense, you play zone defense. You will probably not see Argentina playing zone defense anymore.

You seem to maintain your composure throughout the game and are very organized in your strategy, can you talk about that?
We talk about that all the time. We are playing in the U.S. and the teams here love to play fast breaks, one-on-ones, and three-point shooting. So we want to play calmer, pace ourselves. It may be more European basketball - even though we are in the Americas, and we are proud to be here, our players play in Europe or the NBA, but before the NBA they played in Europe. So we try to play calmer, organized and the rest of the teams don't like that. If we tried to play more fast breaks or athletic basketball, we would lose all the games. We have different type of players, but some teams can do it.

The press still picks Brazil as the favorite over Argentina, are you comfortable with that?
The situation with the press, well, maybe Brazil is uncomfortable with that. You know that in Argentina, second place is no good. The pressure that we have from our country is so big that whatever is said here is irrelevant. It's still a reality. Brazil has most of its team here, except Varejao and Araujo that couldn't make it last minute, and we have eight world renowned players that couldn't be here. But that's not important because we want to be in the finals. So whatever the general opinion is, does not affect us, and if Brazil has a bit of an advantage over us as a favorite, then maybe that's not so bad for us.

PABLO QUINTEROS, ARGENTINA
Do your responsibilities increase when you play against a team with a defense like Mexico's?
Yes. We have to be more focused knowing this is an opportunity that we have and we need to pull through. We knew Mexico's defense was very asphyxiating and the few opportunities you had, you had to convert. Your responsibilities obviously increase and that's when you become more active and focused.

NOLAN RICHARDSON, MEXICO HEAD COACH
There was a point when Mexico was dominating the game and then you rotated your starters, what happened?
We've played 23 games. I'm not here to change anything. Twenty three games in a month and a half, and that's just the way we play. Sometimes I can play a lot of players, other times I can't.

What were the difficulties that you faced against a team like Argentina?
Argentina made a lot of shots, and I just can't do anything about that. They also got a lot of rebounds. I think that our guys' legs are just tired. Argentina doesn't jump that high, they don't jump like Team USA, so why aren't we getting the rebounds? We are just a little bit tired right now.

Is that one of the most disciplined approaches to attacking a pressure defense that you've seen in your years of coaching?
Yes. They did an excellent job of putting their people in the right spots and skip passing. The thing that hurt us is that the point person on our defense just didn't have the legs to do his job. He's 6'9'; he's very long and has been able to create a lot of problems when we play against other teams. We can get some altitude if we have him at 100 percent, but tonight he just didn't have the legs to do the job.

VICTOR MARISCAL, MEXICO
Do you agree with your coach that the exhaustion took a toll on you guys today?
Yes. It definitely showed. The team wanted to pressure and you can pressure at the beginning, but as the game progresses, your legs get increasingly tired, the other team starts finding their rhythm and they had a player on the wing that was affecting us a lot, Quinteros. He made three or four three-point shots. At that point we lost control. What coach said is important, there are no excuses, but the entire Argentina team kept going in to get the rebounds and they came in aggressively. They got a lot of rebounds over us. If you look at the stats, they had more than 10, or maybe 20, offensive rebounds because we just didn't know how to stop them. Argentina played well, very smartly. Let's hope we do better tomorrow, we have another opportunity. Technically, we qualified after Puerto Rico's loss. But the games count because if Puerto Rico is out and we qualify, then we begin the next round with a zero. They take away your won game if that team is eliminated. So we have to win against Uruguay tomorrow.

How are you planning to get back on track tomorrow?
Working and playing harder. Uruguay will be pumped up because they defeated Puerto Rico but we have to show our Mexican pride. It hurts to lose, but there are many guys who want to play for this team, and we're here, so we have to show our pride. We have to do what coach has taught us that we've forgotten. We have a system that we work with and we've not been implementing it. Tomorrow we have to go back to our thing and remain focused throughout the entire game to win.