“North Bohemia Defeats Opava in Basketball Final with High-Scoring Contributions from Svoboda and Nichols”

Matěj Svoboda contributed 33 points to the victory of North Bohemia, followed by Ty Nichols with 23 points, who missed a double double by one assist. Not even captain Jakub Šiřina’s 21 points helped Opava take the last step towards its fifth title in history and the first since 2003.

“We are not Nymburk, we are in this position for the first time and you can see that it took a toll on us in the second half. The opponent was clearly better in it. Excellent performances by Svoboda and Nichols…, those two players were enough, for us Šířa (Šiřina) was everything alone. You can’t win like this,” said Opava coach Petr Czudek.

“You thought that the Warriors would put it down, we would win 3-0 and go home happily? This is a fight between two eternal challengers of Nymburk, who have played in the final and never won. The weight is here. We have to knock ourselves out, regenerate, gather all our strength, to win it at home,” continued the Slezan coach.

Děčín started without the support of Anthony Walton and captain Tomáš Pomikálek, who finished Sunday’s second match in Opava with an injury, but have been sidelined for a long time. In less than four minutes, Slezana escaped to a 15:6 lead, and Šiřina contributed ten points. He made two three-pointers and Martin Gniadek added another.

The home team then reduced the score to 22:23, but Radovan Kouřil ended the first quarter with Opava’s sixth three-pointer from ten attempts. The guests regained an eight-point lead, moreover, they were always able to respond to reductions and, just like in the first quarter, twice already went to the highest difference of nine points. However, Děčín showed a 7-0 run by halftime thanks exclusively to Svobod and corrected the score to 42:44.

“For how bad we played in the first half, especially with some extra playoff energy, we’re glad it was only two points. Offensively, even though we didn’t hit anything at all, we were able to score over 40 points. In the second half, the energy was absolutely fine. In some longer passages of the second half we were the better team, the result speaks for itself. We know it’s only one point, but we wanted to return to Opava in the series, that’s we succeeded. Tomorrow we will recover, we will go to Opava and we will fight there in the fourth match,” said coach Děčína Grepl.

After the break, Filip Kroutil, Dontae Bruner and Igor Josipovič extended the series and the lead was 48:44 and the first ever since the very beginning, when the North Bohemians were twice in a close lead. The Opavans did not succeed in shooting from a distance and took a seven-point loss. But they could still rely on Šiřina, and Radek Farský improved the team’s bad balance from free throws, which reduced the score to 53:54. This time, however, Svoboda responded with a ten-point streak, and Petr Macháč extended the team lead by two more points.

After two unconverted free throws, Macháč was elbowed by Gniadek in a duel. He was subsequently knocked to the ground by Kroutil, which is why he was disqualified.

Děčín coped with further weakening of the narrowed rotation and thanks to Tomáš Jansa’s three-pointer in the 32nd minute, the difference was already 13 points. Siřina reduced the lead to 60:70 with Opava’s first 3-pointer in the first quarter, but the visitors were unable to convert. The home team even increased the lead twice to 24 points, and Opava only slightly corrected the result.