By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Germany seemed to be in trouble until the third period in front of 18.000 home fans. Then everything changed as the Eurobasket hosts turned things around and ultimately got the 92-82 win over Bosnia in Group B.
It was a team effort led by the backcourt of Dennis Schroder (18 p. 9 as.), Franz Wagner (18 p. 5 r. ), and sharpshooter Andreas Obst (13 p. 3/4 3p.), while Johannes Thiemann also added 14 points.
On the other side, the duo of Dzanan Musa (30 p.) and Jusuf Nurkic (21 p. 7 r.) were an amazing one-two punch and led Bosnia to a 47-42 halftime lead. “I told my players we were lucky to be down by five at halftime, but we entered the second half better, we had more intensity and played the pick-and-roll a bit better”, German coach Gordon Herbert said.
However, Germany dominated the third period with a 28-11 partial score and entered the last quarter leading by 12 (70-58).
“I think nothing went wrong, but simply we don’t have the experience to play 40 minutes of great basketball, we are a young team and things will get better”, said Nurkic in the press conference.
Bosnia still made a comeback, trimming the lead to six (82-76) with three minutes left. They couldn’t get any closed with Wagner making a crucial block over Jusuf Nurkic and the Bosnian bench a few seconds later getting a “T”.
That created a minor controversy with Jusuf Nurkic speaking in the press conference about the way the game was called.
As he said: “Personally, I think FIBA is struggling with the rules. They have to catch up with the NBA. I had so many opportunities to get fouls. For example, when Wagner was going to dunk the ball, it was clearly a block and it was called a foul. Ok, let’s move on. And then when I turned around against Theis in the post, he was clearly pushing me, and it was not a foul, it was a block by Wagner. At the end of the day, we understand that they are playing at their home, there’s the home crowd and the refs are not going to let us rest. We don’t care too much and we are going to move forward”.
Photo Credit: FIBA.BASKETBALL