By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
After Greece stunned them in their EuroBasket 2022 debut, Croatia got its second win in a row, beating Estonia 73-70 and going up 2-1 in Group C. On the other side, Jukka Toijala’s team remains winless at the bottom, with a 0-3 record.
Karlo Matkovic (17 p.) was the most decisive player for his team, as his perfect shooting day (8/8 FG, 1/1 FT) proves it. Croatia struggled from the perimeter (6/20) and managed to go all the way to the final victory thanks to its bigs: Dario Saric (15 p., 12 r.) and Ivica Zubac (8 p., 8 r.) played a significant part in this win. Naturalized point guard Jaleen Smith (13 p., 7 a.) put them in rhythm.
“We’ve got to start from the start, fight to get the defensive rebounds, run to the position because that’s what gives us points”, Karlo Matkovic said. “We can get better in the low post game. When we were attacking pick and roll, we were making better decisions. We can be better in a lot of ways”, coach Damir Mulaomerovic added.
Estonia was once again close to its first EuroBasket 2022 victory. After the 74-73 thrilling loss against Ukraine, they played intensely and smoothly both in the first and the fourth quarter, but couldn’t score the tying three-pointer to go to overtime. Siim-Sander Vene’s three-point range (18 p., 5/10 3pts) and Maik-Kalev Kotsar’s dominant presence under the rim (17 p., 5 r.) weren’t enough, just like Kristian Kullamae’s (14 p.) effort.
“It hurts: two games in a row like this. Unfortunately, we came a little short again”, Siim-Sander Vene said. “It’s been a long summer. We keep on playing for our fans who traveled here, to keep our head up and play two more games as well as we can. Right now, it’s really tough. And there’s not much time but I’m still confident that we don’t quit here”, coach Jukka Toijala commented.
After a great Estonian start, Croatia produced a 10-0 run and managed to stay up front after the end of the second quarter (33-29). The second half of the game was nothing but balanced, with Estonia doing its best pushed by at least 2.000 fans coming from the Baltic.
The winners didn’t give a lot of second chance opportunities to their opponents, as can be seen from the rebounds captured (46 vs 33). Another EuroBasket 2022 thriller was played in Mediolanum Forum.
Photo Credit: FIBA.BASKETBALL