The basketball players of Bosnia and Herzegovina opened their European Championship appearance with a convincing victory, after they outclassed the home team Cyprus today in Limassol, celebrating a triumph with a score of 91:64.
BiH’s victory was ultimately convincing, but the very poor third quarter, in which Cyprus was better by 12 points, must be a warning before the much more difficult duels that lie ahead for BiH.
BiH thus achieved a victory in a match in which it played the role of absolute favorites and has now created the prerequisites to fight against much stronger rivals from Group C for fourth place and a place in the knockout phase.
BiH entered the game fantastically and took a big 10:0 lead, but Cyprus managed to quickly consolidate its ranks and catch up after that.
The hosts scored two three-pointers and reduced the lead to 15:10, and after that it was only 16:13.
Kenan Kamenjaš managed to wake up our team and the fans in the hall with a great dunk two minutes before the end of the first quarter, when he scored for 18:13.
However, at the end of the first quarter, BiH reached a safe lead of 23:13.
BiH’s lead continued to grow in the second period of the game, as it was soon 30:15, and soon Nurkić came off the bench and scored his second three-pointer in two attempts for 33:19.
BiH maintained a large lead until halftime, as after 20 minutes of play it was 47:26. However, problems in the BiH team’s game could be seen later.
Namely, there was a long-lasting major offensive crisis in our national team’s game, which Cyprus knew how to take advantage of and melt the deficit, so at the end of the third quarter it reduced it to a single-digit number of points (58:49).
BiH ended the third quarter by not scoring a single point for three minutes, which immediately threatened our victory today.
Nurkić managed to break BiH’s fast break in the last quarter and return our team to a double-digit lead
Fortunately, Roberson woke up in the key moments, who had been shooting a miserable 0/7 until then, and then he scored two three-pointers in a row and hit one from half-distance, bringing us 68:54.
Cyprus’ game then fell apart and BiH slowly brought the game to an end. Our selection celebrated with a big 91:64.
Nurkić shone for our team with 18 points, six rebounds, two steals and one block. He shot 6/11 from the field, and made two three-pointers from four attempts. Amar Alibegović, Adin Vrabac and Amar Gegić, who also shared six assists, added 10 points each.
The next game for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s basketball team is on Saturday at 20:15, when they will face Spain.
Earlier today, Spain suffered a shocking defeat to Georgia, which crushed them 83:69, and thus BiH’s main competitor for fourth place in the group recorded a perfect start to the European Championship, while now Spain comes to the game like a wounded lion, Klix.ba writes.
