By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Greece didn’t leave anything to chance against Montenegro putting on great defensive effort from the tip-off and recording an 85-60 win in Group F of the FIBA World Cup.
Greece got the job done already in the first half allowing Montenegro only 16 points (9+7) while they banked 42 themselves. Giannis Antetokounmpo and Giorgios Printezis led their first-half offense with ten and 12 points respectively with the latter banking all of his shots (3-3).
Giannis stopped at his ten points and seven rebounds in 16 minutes of play while Printezis finished the game with 16 in addition to Georgios Papagiannis’ 15 points. The latter also grabbed nine boards recording his best performance ever with the national team.
As Montenegro’s coach Zvezdan Mitrovic said: “We understand that Greece is a better team, but in the first half we played really, really bad. We looked better in the second half, but what Greece did in the first half was enough for the win. Still, I think my players will be ready for the next game against New Zealand”.
The second half was more balanced but all Montenegro could do was keep their deficit from increasing. Greece was ahead 63-38 at the end of the third and safely closed the game in the final period.
“We started the tournament with a great win and I think that this score is too much, Montenegro is a really good team”, said Greece’s coach Thanasis Skourtopoulos. “After the first minutes, we relaxed and we started playing our game. We are already thinking about the next game against Brazil”.
Nikola Vucevic banked 12 points for Montenegro followed by Petar Popovic with 11 while Nikola Ivanovic and Milko Bjelica helped with nine points each.
Photo Credit: FIBA.BASKETBALL