Warburton shines to take GB into gold medal match

Wheelchair basketballer Gregg Warburton played the game of his life to help Great Britain end 28 years of hurt at the Paralympics.

After six successive semi-final defeats stretching back to Sydney 2000, Britain beat Germany 71-43 in Paris to make the gold medal game for the first time since 1996.

Key scorer Warburton put up 27 shots and overcame a slow start to pour in 35 points and put in the star turn of the seminal success.

“It’s potentially as well as I’ve ever played but I still missed a lot of good shots,” said Warburton. 

“It was a struggle in the first half, I missed some really good looks. A big shout out to the boys for believing and telling us to keep going with it. 

“We turned up our defensive intensity in the second half, crossed the floor in transition, that was where our open looks came from and I was fortunate enough to knock a few down.”

Warburton offered an insight into the mentality needed to keep showing for the ball.

“The first and foremost is that I’m brave and I want it whenever the moment,” said Warburton. “I’m willing to do it and honestly couldn’t do it without the boys.

“It’s tough when you miss two or three in a row and their bench is shouting, the crowd’s going wild, especially if you know you can make it and you’ve worked so hard. 

“But the boys are right behind me, screaming, ‘keep taking them shots’ and that just spurs you on so much. That’s the way we want to keep playing.”

GB were heavy favourites for the semi-final but the first half was nip and tuck as they opened up a slender 28-24 lead at the midway point.

ParalympicsGB pulled away in the third quarter, outscoring Germany 20 points to eight, with a cameo off the bench from Peter Cusack making all of the difference.

Team USA are looming large for GB and skipper Phil Pratt would love nothing better than to prevent them from winning a third gold medal in a row.

“Some of my idols are in the US team and they’re the most successful team in history,” said the Welshman.

“They’re looking to three-peat, no team has ever done it and we’ll be hoping to stop them from doing that.”