Tokyo 2020. Poland better than Japan in the 3×3 basketball tournament

The Poles started brilliantly and in the second minute, after two entrances by Zamojski, the Michael Hicks throw once led 4-0, but the hosts quickly made up for the losses. Ira Brown hit from behind the curve and then finished the action with a dunk and it was 6: 5 for Japan. The game leveled, for several dozen seconds we watched a lot of hard fights and missed throws.

At the 8: 8 draw, Hicks scored a two, the Japanese responded, but then Paweł Pawłowski, rather rarely scoring, flashed. His two successful attempts with the circuit allowed Biało-Czerwony to jump back to 14: 9, and in a moment another such an accurate throw was made by Hicks. The rivals reduced their losses by two, and Brown effectively blocked Hicks. However, Pawłowski finished two actions under the basket and it seemed that the Poles, leading 18:12, had the fate of the match under control.

But the locals were not going to give up and started to make up for the losses, and the White and Reds made mistakes. At 18:16, when starting the action, Pawłowski committed a foul in the attack and an unattended Keisei Tominaga hit in a moment. Hicks conceded the ball which allowed Brown to equalize at 18:18. Hicks’s throw from the basket to win was unsuccessful and there was an extra time.

In the first action, played up to 2 points of the additional part, Hicks blocked the opponent, but Tomoy Ochiai finished the flight. Hicks missed the throw for the win, as did Ryuto Yasuoka’s under-basket drive, after which the ball danced on the rim. He collected Hicks, passed to the Zamojski region, which scored the winning 2 points.

The 35-year-old threw a total of 7, just like Pawłowski. Hicks had one spot less, and Szymon Rduch ended the performance without hitting. The rivals have 7 points for Brown and Tominaga, 3 for Yasuoki and 2 for Ochiai.

Earlier that day, in the first match of the tournament, Poland lost 14:21 to Latvia, the vice-champion, who then unexpectedly lost 20:21 to Belgium. On Sunday, July 25, Poland, the bronze medalist of the last World Championships, will face the Serbs and the Russians.

The group competition takes place in a peer-to-peer system, and in the following days Poles will have five other meetings. There will be six teams in the knockout stage, two in the semi-finals.

The results of the 3×3 basketball tournament so far:

Latvia – Poland 21:14

Serbia – China 22:13

RKO (Russia) – China 21:13

Serbia – Netherlands 16:15

Belgium – Latvia 21:20

Poland – Japan 20:19

Today they still play:

15:00 CPR (Russia) – Netherlands

15:25 Belgium – Japan

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