Putting on a dominating performance in its premiere Acropolis Tournamentthe National she presented us with many positives in her game and celebrated the very comfortable victory with 86-57 of of Montenegrocontinuing with optimism her preparation ahead of the Pre-Olympics (July 2-7)!
Although he fought again without him Giannis Antetokounmpo in her composition (expected to play in the friendly against the Bahamas) the “blue and white” had absolute control throughout the game, which she finished with 18/32 two-pointers, 14/41 three-pointers, 26 assists for 9 errors and with 51 rebounds, of which 17 were offensive!
Leaders for the National Team, which had versatility in its attack, were Papagiannis (12p, 6 rib), Mitoglou (10p, 12 rib) and You’re in a basket (8 points, 6 assists), only the NBAer stood out for MontenegroNikola Vucevic, with 20 points and 11 rebounds. Next friendly test for the team of Vassilis Spanoulis, who tried different faces and formations, against the Bahamasnext Thursday (27/5, 20:00).
The match
Our national team started the game with Walkap, Kalathi, Papanikolaou, Charalambopoulos and Papagianni, while Montenegro lined up with Peri, Popovic, Hadjibegovic, Radoncic and Vucevic. The “blue and white” started the match very strongly and scored 11 unanswered points, having 4/6 from the field with ? three-pointers from Charalambopoulos, Walkap and Kalathis, while at the same time keeping her opponents at zero for 3.5 minutes.
Papanikolaou made it 14-2 with another three-pointer, Vucevic responded with a three-pointer of his own for Montenegro, before Radoncic scored to make it 14-7, assisted by Perry. Our National Team continued to control the tempo, even though the Montenegrins managed to stay close to the score, before Toliopoulos scored with a three-pointer from the corner after perfect ball movement, for 21-12! The first quarter ended with a beautiful alley-oop cooperation between Walkup and Costa Antetokounmpo and a fantastic nailing of the second, for (23-12), while our National Team had 4/7 two-pointers and 5/15 three-pointers!
Vassilis Spanoulis’ team continued to circulate the ball perfectly in their attack, while not allowing their opponent to find a rhythm. Thus, she made with relative comfort her maximum lead in the match (+15, 29-14), while Vucevic hit a three-pointer from the top, before Kalaitzakis responded with the same coin, which made it 32-17. Kalathis with his own three-pointer from a long distance and at the end of the attack time, put our national team at +18 for the first time (35-17), while with another alley-oop collaboration with Papagiannis, it was 37-17 . Papanikolaou and Charalambopoulos raised our national team’s three-point percentage to 40% (9/22), for an impressive +23 (45-22), while the first half ended with Spanoulis’ team leading 45-26, having 8/16 two-pointers, 9/26 three-pointers, 13 assists, just 3 mistakes and 31 rebounds, of which 12 were offensive!
The image of the match did not change even with the return of the two teams from the locker room, with our National Team… biting in its defenses and with Papagiannis making a splash by scoring 8 consecutive points, reaching 12 personal for 55-30! At that point in the game, the “blue and white” lost pace and began to struggle quite a bit in their attacks, giving Montenegro the right to reduce it to 58-37, but Larentzakis with two consecutive three-pointers once again pushed the difference to +27 (65 -38), before Drombniak cut it to 65-41 with his own buzzer-beater three-pointer late in the third period.
The fourth quarter started with Mitoglou’s nailing and Moraitis’ accurate layup after his own steal, with our national team again showing us its good competitive face, once again throwing the difference in its favor to +32 (79-47), after consecutive three-pointers by Larentzakis and baskets by Mitoglou. The Montenegrins were down 79-55 with 2:49 left in the final of the game, while the National team finally reached the final without problems 86-57, with Spanoulis doing a lot of… experiments and tests in the last minutes!
The quarters: 23-12, 45-26, 65-41, 86-57
Detailed match statistics
Live of the match from sport-fm.gr
Source: Sport Fm
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