Spain retains Eurobasket gold in Lithuania

Spain's national basketball team retained the European Championship gold it won two years ago in Poland after inflicting a 98-85 win over France in the final on Sunday night.

The result confirms the place in history of a golden generation of talent, led by six NBA stars, adding to the World title it won in 2006, Olympic silver in Beijing in 2008 and the European runner-up spot it achieved on home turf in 2007.

And it did it in exemplary style in Kaunas, Lithuania, never allowing its rival a way back into the game after moving ahead.

Sergio Scariolo's team, however, made an edgy start until a three-pointer from tournament MVP Juan Carlos Navarro and two points from Pau Gasol settled the nerves.

Five minutes in and another three-pointer from the Toronto Raptors' José Calderón gave Spain its first advantage, which it maintained for the rest of the match - if at times only narrowly.

A strong end to the first quarter left it at 25-20 while the start of the second was the signal for Congolese-born Serge Ibaka, making his national team debut at the tournament, to begin his reign of terror over the French, making five blocks in little more than four minutes.

At the start of the second half, France, rearmed for the game with NBA stars Tony Parker and Joakim Noah after resting them for the teams' second-round showdown, was wounded but still fighting.

Missed three-pointers by Rudy Fernández and Navarro failed to finish the French off at 69-56 with two minutes to go in the third quarter, which ended 75-62.

With France reeling, Spain unleashed Navarro, supported by Pau and Marc Gasol, all of them moving at the same rhythm as the even better Calderón, and accelerated away to victory.

"I am very proud of them," said coach Scariolo. "Very few teams can celebrate what we have achieved, two consecutive golds. They are players of great talent who work as a team and defend with sacrifice. [They] represent sport's true values. They always want to play and win, and they always want to do it together."

And they'll have the chance to test themselves again next year at the London Olympics. ""We know it's a very tough tournament to win but we have very high expectations," said Pau Gasol.

"It's very hard to beat a US team, we know that for a fact, but we are going to London to compete and we will see what happens."