The national team fell fighting in Latvia

Curtain with defeat for her Hellas in the World Cup qualifiers.

The indifferent Nationalhaving qualified for the finals of the event, fought in Latviabut in the end “bent” (67-57), completing the qualifiers with a record 6-4.

On the other hand, Luca Banki’s team was first and better too 9-1.

The first scorer for Greece was Hatzidakis with 9 points. Debut with the National Team for Tanoulis with 7p., while his first points with the national emblem were also achieved by Pope (3p.).

Among the Latvians, the best were Leimanis and Strautins with 11 points each.

The match

Greece started with Gondikas, Hougaz, Kalaitzakis, Toliopoulos and Flionis. The National team entered sluggishly, as mistakes and miscues allowed Latvia to take a 9-3 lead in the first four minutes. The difficulty in the attack was still there for the players of Manolopoulos, who also had bad returns in the defense, with the home team scoring baskets in the open court for +8 (14-6), in the 7th minute. The picture of the game did not change in the last minutes, with the missed defensive rebounds giving the opportunity to the Banky team to close the first period at +10 (18-8).

At the beginning of the second quarter, Latvia went to +12 (21-9). Greece’s reaction came with Murato-Moraitis at guard and Hatzidakis hungry inside the racket, for a 7-0 run (21-16), until 12′. Then, the pace of the match picked up, with peripheral shots sending the hosts to +9 (31-22), at 16′. However, in the next few minutes, Manolopoulos’ players tightened up defensively and with Toliopoulos in front offensively, but also a terribly difficult buzzer beater by Hougaz, who was down on his knees, came close to the point (33-32) at the end of the first half .

With a good defense and a three-pointer by Tanoulis, Greece took the lead (33-35) at the beginning of the second half. However, the continuation was not similar, as errors in the attack, as well as Bertans and Leimanis pushed Latvia to individual scores of 13-1, for +9 (45-36), until the 26th minute. The National team responded with a basket by Godikas, with the hosts answering for +13 (52-39) and the tall Greek making it 52-41 in the third period.

With an improvement in defense and Tanoulis and Katsivelis the protagonists in the attack, Greece made individual scores 2-11 and reduced to the basket (54-52), in the 34th minute. Latvia had the lead, but the National Team stayed in the game (58-55) until the 36th minute. Since then, Manolopoulos’ players have run out of strength with Grazoulis sending the hosts to +8 (63-55) and Banki’s team taking the victory with the final 67-57.

The quarters: 18-8, 33-32, 52-41, 67-57

See the match statistics here

Watch the film of the match here