Captain Sagar vows to fightback after wheelchair basketball defeat to Germany

Captain Ian Sagar has vowed that ParalympicsGB's men's wheelchair basketball side will get their tournament back on track after losing 71-59 to Germany to suffer their first defeat at Tokyo 2020.

 

The game was evenly poised in the first half with both sides creating lots of chances before Germany pulled away in the third quarter to build an unassailable lead.

 

Player-coach Gaz Choudhry led a spirited

fightback and was ParalympicGB’s top scorer for the second game running, adding 14 points to GB’s total.

 

Sagar said: “Not the result we wanted today. We know the players, we know the team and we know Germany are capable of shooting well and today it was just world-class shooting.

 

“Not the result we wanted, we are ranked number one in the world and as the number one ranked team we are going to come back, we are going to fight back.

 

“It is the USA tomorrow, one of the biggest teams in the world and that is perfect for us. We are going to come back tomorrow, we are going to war, and we are going to get this tournament back on track.”

 

Great Britain had a five-point lead in the first quarter thanks in part to an impressive lay-up from Harry Brown before Germany fought back as the sides went into the first break locked at 13-13.

 

The lead changed hands multiple times in the second quarter, with ParalympicsGB moving ahead early on before Germany opened up a five-point gap which was then increased further by Thomas Boehme, who starred throughout.

 

The British team, which includes several players who play domestically in Germany, traded blows with their opponents but went into half-time with a slender deficit, at 31-28 behind.

 

A devastating third quarter from Germany stretched their lead to 14 as they landed three-pointers with increasing regularity.

 

Choudry looked to inspire a fightback, contributing a number of two-pointers alongside free throws, but some errant shots made the German advantage unassailable as ParalympicsGB lost by 12 points and now sit third in Group B, ahead of facing the USA at 9:00 BST tomorrow.