Gibraltar basketball faced fourth defeat from four in FIBA tournament

A fourth defeat for Gibraltar on Sunday against San Marino in the FIBA European Championship for Small Countries left them bottom of the group table.
Gibraltar started well with the initial drive for points. However, San Marino showed that they were not there to merely make up the numbers and levelled at 6-6 before going behind once again.
As Gibraltar started to look confident, they were to find themselves with San Marino notching the points and coming back in the latter seconds of the first quarter to take with them a confidence-boosting first quarter by the narrowest of margins, 26-25.
Gibraltar responded well on the second quarter and from the started took the lead taking it to a 37-42.
Just as San Marino thought they were getting back into the game they found themselves trailing further as Gibraltar put in a good display and led at half time by 42-50.
The half-time break was not to work well for Gibraltar as they returned to face a San Marino side intent on clawing back the score. Slowly they took the lead as Gibraltar seemed to get stuck on 56 points.
Taking their lead into the final quarter San Marino did not let go opening a gap between themselves and their opponents.
Although Gibraltar looked at making a comeback towards the final two minutes coming to within three points some tactical play from San Marino to secure points instead of risking losing rebounds found Gibraltar giving away fouls.
This slowly saw San Marino reopen their points gap in those final two minutes going to a 92-82 lead.
With sixteen seconds left on the clock and Gibraltar with the ball Ortega dropped the ball and gestured it was over as Gibraltar had little chance to grab ten points in that short a time.
This was to be Gibraltar’s fourth defeat leaving them bottom of the group table.