By Semih Tuna / info@eurohoops.net
Tbilisi, Georgia – Naturalized guard Dee Bost knew that he had to do more than his part for Bulgaria against Georgia to have a fighting chance. And he did exactly that, scoring a Eurobasket career-high of 33 points, making nine threes and equalizing the competition’s record, registered in the 1995 final by Serbian Sasha Djordjevic, and also dished 12 assists.
It was one of the most amazing performances of the tournament so far, even if it kind of flew under the radar since Giannis and Luka also happened.
For Dee Bost, who finally broke his shooting slump in the tournament, it was a showcase of his real abilities: “Honestly, basketball is basketball. I’ve been playing basketball for 20 years. It is part of the game. I feel confident, I’m still confident. I am the same player I was before. Just couldn’t make a shot. It was a big relief to finally make something and get a win.”
Plus, Bulgaria finally improved on defense. In this case, that means conceding 80 points, a number which is considered high for European basketball, but still, it was way better than the previous outings of the team.
As Bost said: “Today I was really satisfied with our defense. First three games, we let our opponents over 90 points every game. If we play defense like this and put our offense, we can compete with anybody.”
Bulgaria despite a 1-3 record can still qualify for the Round of 16 with a win over Belgium depending also other results. And Bost knows what he has to do: “I don’t want to look too far ahead. We got a tough game coming. We gotta handle our business tomorrow and then we will see.”
For Bost, this was his first big game in the tournament. However, his teammate Sasha Vezenkov has been one of the standouts of the event, averaging 27 ppg (second best behind Giannis Antetokounmpo’s 31 ppg) and also being the top rebounder with 12 ppg.
“He has been playing well in this tournament and I just had to join the party and help him”, said Bost with a smile for his teammate who scored 28 points against Georgia. “We both scored the way we score”.