Latvian basketball players beat Serbs in an important World Cup qualification game / Article

Artūrs Kurucs became the top scorer in the Latvian national team with 13 points, six assists and four rebounds. Klāvs Čavars and Andrejs Gražulis scored ten points each, Andrzej Pasečniks scored nine points, Dāvis Bertāns scored eight points and five rebounds, while Tom Leimanis and Rihards Lomaž scored seven points each, who also had six assists and four fouls.

Alex Avramovic scored 16 points for the guests, and Vanja Marinkovic scored 12. On the other hand, Filips Petrushevs did not score a single point, but won ten balls under the basket.

In group A, after five matches, Latvia has four and Serbia three victories, while Belgium has two successes in four matches, while Slovakia is winless.

In the first quarter of a low-scoring game in which the home team did not make many free throws, the home team took a 5-0 lead after Tom Leimans’ three-pointer and Roland Schmidt’s hook shot, but could not pull away. In the eighth minute, after Vanja Marinković’s two-point shot, the visitors were already in the lead with 10:9. The Latvians managed to win the quarter thanks to Andrzej Pasečnik’s shot from under the basket – 13:12.

In the second ten minutes, the points accumulated more, but in a similar game, neither team managed to gain a significant advantage. The home team gained the biggest advantage in the 16th minute after Klavs Čavar’s hook shot (23:20), while the Serbs got the biggest advantage at the end of the half-time siren, when Alex Avramović finished the pass with a shot in the basket, – 31:25.

In the second half, Rihards Lomažs was also able to go on the field, as his eyebrow was cut at the end of the first half, causing bleeding. The Serbs continued their breakthrough, reaching 34:25 in the 22nd minute after Nemanja Dangubič’s three-pointer.

The Latvians fought back with good defense, as well as three long shots by Artūrs Kurucs and two shots from under the basket by Andrejs Gražulis, reaching 40:36. At the end of the quarter, Leimanis hit two shots in the basket, but ten minutes after his pass, Lomaž finished the game with a two-point shot – 46:38.

Fighting excellently in defense and allowing the Serbians to score only three points in the first less than five minutes of the quarter, the Latvians reached 60:43 after Lomaž’s long shot in the 36th minute. In the last five minutes, the Latvian national team played positionally in the attack and wasted the game time, which separated them from the victory, Serbia managed to get close, but Latvia celebrated the victory by winning the first place in the group.

On Tuesday, Rolands Šmits and Jānis Bērziņš joined the training of the Latvian national team, who took the place of the injured Artūrs Strautiņš. Due to injury, Kristers Zorik and Marcis Steinberg were sidelined in the match with Serbia.

On the other hand, the Serbian team was delayed on the way to Latvia. The charter flight from Niš was ready to depart only late on Wednesday evening, but the arrival in Riga was planned already after midnight.

In preparation for the 2023 World Cup qualification matches, the Latvian national team played two test matches against Lithuania. In the first match in Riga, Latvia was superior, winning with 70:52, but in the second, the Lithuanians were successful, defeating the Latvian national team with 98:62.

The training of the Latvian national team in “Arena Riga” has been held since June 16. The Latvian men’s basketball team will play the last match in Group A on July 3 in Levice against Slovakia.

The Latvian national team had won three victories in the first four games of Group A of the 2023 World Cup qualification tournament, as well as experienced a minimal loss against Serbia. Until Thursday’s game, the national teams of Latvia and Serbia had already secured the right to play in the second stage of the qualification.

The Serbian national team is one of the two teams of European countries that the Latvian national team had not managed to defeat since the restoration of independence until Thursday. The Latvians came closest to success half a year ago – in the first round match of the World Cup qualification tournament on November 25 in Belgrade (100:101).

In the second stage, the top three teams from Group A will face the teams from Group B (Greece, Turkey and Great Britain). Two matches each will be held in August, November and February 2023. The three best teams out of six will qualify for the final tournament.

The 12 best European teams (three from each group of the second stage) will get tickets to the final tournament of the World Cup, which will be held in Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines in September 2023. The teams that will remain in the fourth places in the groups in the first stage will participate in the pre-qualification tournament of the 2025 European Championship.

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