Poland wins against Lithuania

Poland grabbed their second group win during European Basketball Championship. In Wrocław’s People’s Hall they defeated Lithuania 86:75 (25:23, 17:9, 18:18, 26:25). All correspondents emphasize the great atmosphere created by the fans of both teams. Wrocław’s crowds, known for their love for basketball were the 6th player of our team.

Poland started the game well leading 9:0 at the beginning of the game, but Lithuanians were able to catch up and only a buzzer beater of Krzysztof Szubarga allowed us to win this quarter. The second quarter decided about the rest of the game. Good defense and intelligent offence allowed us to get a considerable lead before the half time. Especially David Logan was very active during this quarter. After the break our team did not look very sharp, but Lithuanians had problems to score a basket, so third quarter was very tight and Poles managed to save their ten points lead. At the beginning of forth Michał Ignerski managed to score 8 points in a row and everyone thought that this game was over. Unfortunately our starting players, who played nearly the whole game were tired and lost their focus. The series of turnovers and bad defensive rebounding allowed Lithuanians to make the gap just 8 points. However Polish team found the answer at the end (with a little help from referees) and managed to win this game.

Our NBA center Marcin Gortat critisised the team:“ It is great that we won, but we can’t play so carelessly in the future, because we may not defend our advantage next time. We need to be more focused if we really are going to make history”.