By Nikos Varlas/ varlas@eurohoops.net
Italy closed the game the right way and beat Croatia 67-60 despite 26 points by Bojan Bogdanovic. However this game was about defense and the team of coach Ettore Messina prevailed.
After all, Bogdanovic scored 19 of his points in the first half which ended tied at 35 points for both teams. Croatia made just 25 points in the next 20 minutes and Italy had things control, playing in front of its crowd in the pre-Olympic tournament of Turin. The best the losing side did, was cut the lead of Italy to three points (56-53), but Bogdanovic didn’t score after that.
Marco Belinelli had 18 points for the winners, while Danilo Galinari and Daniel Hackett scored 12 points each and also had 8 rebounds each. The only other player of Croatia who scored in double digits was Dario Saric with 11 and also had 10 rebounds. Mario Hezonja took only four shots and scored 7 points.
After this win, Italy has a 2-0 record and Croatia needs to beat Tunisia tomorrow in order to advance in the knock out games.