The home team reached for the desired difference in Pardubice in the last second of the match, when Tomáš Satoranský sent a three-point shot. But his attempt did not fall into the frame.
The best scorer of the Czech team was Ondřej Balvín with 19 points, the visitors were led by sixteen points from Džanan Musa and John Robertson.
“In the last event, it was a bit of a bad decision on my part. I wanted to play a pick and roll with Ondra Balvín, but they took him with Gegic. So I decided to drive, but I should have solved it a little differently, because the turn came into the box , where there were more people. Unfortunately,” said Satoranský.
“That’s what happens in tense matches like this, when you run out of energy. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a time out to draw something. I was usually not wrong in these situations, so I knew that something like this had to come with time,” added the thirty-year-old quarterback.
Although the Czechs avenged November’s 90:97 defeat in Sarajevo, they will still have to fight for promotion in Monday’s final group game in Lithuania.
If they succeed, they will secure progress regardless of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s second duel with Bulgaria. In case of defeat, they would have to rely on Bosnia not losing by three to five points at home.
“I think it was a good win for us. The players did a great job. That’s always important when playing for the national team. We started the game well, but then we started to get a little tired. We had some bad moments in the second half. What happened but in the end it’s the win that counts. Before the game I wouldn’t have thought about the score difference at all because the win was important. It was the first game we’ve played together in a long time. If it wasn’t for a few mistakes we could have won by 14 points. But we’re still in a situation where it depends on us,” Ginzburg said.
The national team started in Pardubice in the strongest composition since last year’s participation in the Olympic Games. In addition to Satoranský, Balvín, Patrik Auda, Vojtěch Hruban and Jaromír Bohačík also returned to the national team.
It was the former Strasbourg player who had the best entry, scoring seven of the Czech team’s nine points in the opening minutes. After the first quarter, the Czechs led by seven points.
Also in the second part, the home team continued their fast combination game and after another four points in a row, their lead increased to 11 points. At that moment, there were already eight players on the score sheet of the national team.
After the thirteen-point Bohačík was joined by ten-point Jelínek and nine-point Satoranský, the home players went to the cabins with a fifteen-point lead.
The Bosnians didn’t even have an advantage in rebounds, where they led 27:19. In total, they converted only nine of 40 attempts in the first half.
Although the guests started to be more effective after the break, Ginzburg’s team still held a lead of around fourteen points in front of 3621 spectators in the shootout.
His blockbuster increased several times to 17 points. The Bosnians nevertheless reduced the deficit in the end after Edin Atič and Amar Gegic’s triple.
The Czechs opened the last part with Hruban’s three-pointer, then the fans were cheered by Satoranský’s interplay with the smashing Balvín, and after Auda’s win and fast break, the lead was seventeen points again.
A minute and a half before the end, the Czechs led by 16, but in less than half a minute, Musa reduced their lead to five consecutive points. After the MVP of the Spanish League intentionally missed a free throw, Robertson hit an important three-pointer to reduce the lead to 90-81.
The Czech team brought Hruban back into the game with a three-point attempt, and after Musa’s foul, the home basketball players got a chance for the last attack. However, they did not succeed in it.
“In the end, we ran out of energy, but the important thing is the win. Mathematically, we won by more points than we lost in Bosnia. But before the last round, we have a clear task, which is to go to Lithuania and win there,” added Satoranský.
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