The Puerto Rico team has showed a lot of character in this tournament coming from behind to beat Iran and then putting up a fight against Spain going down by 63-73 and then winning their final must win game against Tunisia by 67-64. In their game in the second group stage they were demolished against the mighty Serbians by 47-90.
Italy had one first two of their games but had to face defeat against Serbia when they lost the game 77-92 in the first group stage. They lost their last match against Spain by 60-67 but are favorites to win this game.
Here is a look in the game
Match Timing: September 8, @ 02:00 PM IST
Venue – Wuhan Gymnasium, in Wuhan, China
Capacity- 13,000
Puerto Rico –
Puerto Rico are going into this game as a must win game and will be relying on players like Jorge Bryan Diaz and Alexander Franklin to produce the goods and Devon Collier and Gian Clavell to come off the bench and impact the game. They were shoddy in the previous game and will look to come back with vengeance
Puerto Rico squad for the World Cup:
Puerto Rico: Isaiah Pineiro, Ramon Clemente, Devon Collier, Gary Browne, Jorge Bryan, Angel Rodriguez, Gian Clavell, David Huertas, Renaldo Balkman, Alexander Franklin, Christopher Brady, Javier Mojica
The Italians will go into this game unchanged and will field a strong side since we are into the deeper stages of the tournament. Daniel Hackett and Marco Belinelli are expected to be the top performers from the start of the game and Jeff Brooks and Awudu Abaas are expected to come of the bench and make an impact
Italy: Paul Biligha, Luca Vitali, Danilo Gallinari, Daniel Hackett, Amedeo Della Valle, Marco Belinelli, Alessandro Gentile, Ariel Filloy, Jeff Brooks, Amedeo Tessitori, Awudu Abass, and Luigi Datome
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PUR – Gary Browne, David Huertas, Isaiah Pinerio, Renaldo Balkman, Jorge Diaz
ITA – Danilo Gallinari, Luigi Datome, Paul Biligha, Marco Belinelli, Daniel Heckett
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Italy –
Danilo Gallinari
His stats in the previous game were
Minutes – 35:06
Points – 15
Assists – 2
Rebounds – 5
Marco Belinelli
His stats in the previous game were
Minutes – 31:27
Points – 7
Assists – 4
Rebounds – 4
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Puerto Rico –
Gary Browne
His stats in the previous game were
Minutes – 15:33
Points – 2
Assists – 2
Rebounds – 0
David Huertas
His stats in the previous game were
Minutes – 20:22
Points – 11
Assists – 3
Rebounds – 0
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The game is expected to be a one sided one and Italy are expected to win the game.