Spain March On To Semis

Two years ago, Jose Manuel Calderon missed a three-pointer at the buzzer as Spain lost to Germany in the 2005 EuroBasket semi-finals. On Thursday the star point guard made sure it wouldn't come down to the final shot, scoring 17 points in spear-heading the world champions' 83-55 drubbing of Germany.

Rudy Fernandez and Juan Carlos Navarro both added 12 points for the superb Spain attack, shooting 57% and the Spanish defense held Dirk Nowitzki to 11 points and the German offense to 33% shooting in their quarter-final showdown in Madrid's Palacio de Deportes.

"We are where we wanted to be, which is the semi-finals. We have the crowd behind us, we are playing as one and we have to take advantage of this," said Calderon.

"We never looked at the score today. All we wanted was to put pressure on Germany and take advantage of their mistakes. Our style is to play with the same intensity for 40 minutes. We have played really well on defense, helping each other out and we have been successful in limiting Dirk Nowitzki."

With the victory, Spain exacted a bit of revenge following Germany's 74-73 victory over Spain in 2005 in Serbia, where Nowitzki buried a baseline jumper over the out-stretched arm of Jorge Garbajosa to pull ahead with three seconds left before Calderon missed a three-pointer at the buzzer.

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source : eurobasket2007.org