By Antonis Stroggylakis / astroggylakis@eurohoops.net
Jakarta, Indonesia – Spanish national team wing Alex Abrines is pleased to complete the first round of the 2023 FIBA World Cup with three wins over three games ahead of the upcoming challenges of Latvia and Canada in the next phase of the competition.
“We’re happy with the results,” Abrines said, asked by Eurohoops after the win of Spain over Iran. “3-0… was not expected. But we wanted to be in this position. Now we have two really tough games to fight for the next round. And it all starts with Latvia that made the big surprise beating France.”
Abrines likes the reigning world champions’ undefeated record but realizes that his team’s performance will require an upgrade against the same Latvian national team that eliminated powerful France.
“We will have to play better than these three games to beat them [Latvia],” Abrines added.
Spain players will be studying the footage of Latvia to know their opponent Abrines has seen Latvia play and has done his own homework a bit on how strong they are, especially when they begin raining threes.
He points out at the collective work he and his teammates should do, especially on defense, to halt Latvia’s dangerous offense.
Watch the upcoming World Cup on the official streaming service of FIBA! Join Courtside 1891 and never miss a second of the action!
“They have lot of [good] rhythm,” Abrines mentioned. “They shoot lot of threes. They have an excellent team. They play hard. They run the court. They spread out pretty good and they have a lot of shooters. We got to help each other not one on one defense. It’s team defense. If we do this, we’re going to get our chance to win.”
Abrines explained how in every major summer tournament Spain gives the impression of starting slow, then building momentum that gets bigger and bigger until reaching its peak performance in the decisive knockout games.
“We try to give our 100 percent every time. Every time we play we have one more game on our backs, together. And obviously we play even better with each other. One thing about us you can say is that we’re competitors. And in every round you need to compete more and more.”