Basketball 3×3. Latvia in the final, Poland will play for bronze
The Polish national team will not play in the final of the European Games Krakow – Małopolska 2023. In the semi-final, after a fierce meeting, it was defeated by Latvia 19:21. Belgium also advanced to the final, beating Germany 21:15.
Both teams went into this match extremely concentrated. Till the score of 10:7 everything was going the white-red team’s way. Then Latvians scored seven points in a row to take 14:10 lead. Przemyslaw Zamojski’s shot from behind the arc tied the game at 15. Adrian Bogucki scoring from under the basket gave Poles two-point lead at 18:16 and Francis Lacis got the ball out of his hands. Both teams played extremely clean, neither team exceeding six fouls. When it was 19:19, Lacis (the most efficient on the court – 8 points) rehabilitated himself and closed the white and red team’s path to the final.
Belgium’s basketball players made history in 3×3 basketball. From the second minute of the group stage, they had no substitutions and played in three because Caspar Augustijnen suffered a serious knee injury. And still they made it to the grand final. First they beat the Austrians 21:20 in the quarter-finals, and then on Saturday they gave no chance to the Germans 21:15. All three players deserve a standing ovation, but Thibaut Vervoort outdid himself – he threw in 15 points on his way to the semi-finals and another 12 in the match for the final. As Belgian Dennis Donkor assured “we have a winners’ mentality, our goal is gold. Fatigue? It will come tomorrow.”