By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Montenegro beat Bulgaria (91-81) and made a decisive step towards qualification to the Round of 16, having a 2-1 record in Group A, while Bulgaria remains at 0-3.
Vladimir Mihailovic with 23 points was the top scorer of the winners, while Igor Drobnjak and Bojan Dubljevic added 17 points each, and Nemanja Radonic had 16.
As coach Bosko Radovic said: “It was a good game, it’s not typical of us to score 90, but our opponent plays every game at 80 or more points”.
Montenegro simply had more options than Bulgaria, which got 26 points from Sasha Vezenkov (photo) on 10/15 FG and 17 points by Andrey Ivanov. However, Dee Bost had an off day with six assists and just one point.
Still, Bulgaria was more than competitive, leading by one point in the first half (46-45) with Vezenkov already scoring 17, but Montenegro opened up the second half with a 12-0 run (57-46).
That proved to be the key point of the game.
Bulgaria’s coach Rosen Tsvetkov Barchovski felt that his team lost a huge chance: “The players, my colleagues and me, we are sorry that we lost this game. It was very, very close. We improve every game, this is good, but in every game, we have a little period in which we lose the game. This time it was the first five minutes of the second half”.
Bulgaria trimmed the lead to three (83-80) with three minutes left, but Kendrick Perry and Dubljevic’s answer was two quick buckets (87-80) putting the game out of reach.
Petar Popovic scored just two points for Montenegro, but as coach Radovic explained, he was injured and even him just being on the court was huge for his team.
Photo Credit: FIBA.BASKETBALL