The fourth game at the Rio Olympic Arena saw the Netherlands Men’s Team tip off against World Champions Australia.
A strong start by Australia saw the Rollers secure a 16-6 first quarter lead. The second quarter proved to be a much tighter encounter as the Netherlands hit back with 19 points to their opponents 20; Australia still securing a 37-25 advantage at half time.
The third quarter was end to end, the teams trading points until Australia pulled ahead once more to enter the final 10 minutes of the game up by 55-38. The Netherlands continued to battle hard, but it was Australia who secured a 70-50 win.
The Netherlands top points scorer for the game, Mustafa Korkmaz said, "Today was good: Australia’s a good team, it was our opening game and against the World Champions; for us it was a good game, we played very well.
"We said to each other in the last few minutes of today’s game, we have to finish well and we have to fight hard in the last few minutes and take the good feeling to tomorrow against Canada. Tomorrow’s a whole new game.
Australian captain, Brad Ness said, "Today was alright: we ground it out, it was a difficult win: I suppose 20 points doesn’t really reflect how we played the game. We’ve got a few things that we’ve got to – not so much adjust to – just get better at doing and I think after half time we actually did that better – hence the result."
For full statistics visit https://www.rio2016.com/en/paralympics/wheelchair-basketball-mens-group-a-preliminary-wb-3