Game 2: Belgium - Sweden: 100-79 (50924)Our match against Sweden was going to be tougher than the one against Andorra. Their guards were in great shape, so I thought we could expect an outside targeted offense. This wasn't the case, Sweden chose for a more balanced offense.
Contrary to the first match, the team was stronger in the early stages.
We managed to end Q1 with a buzzerbeater 3-ball from Amadeo and a 10 point gap 30-20.
2nd and 3th Q were scandalous, Sweden took advantage of our missed shots and even came back to 2 points. They could only enjoy 10 seconds because Siebert decided to take an elbow shot under heavy pressure, which also went in. After this, we rewrapped ourselves and went into HT with an 8 point deficit 45-37. But we lost our first Q in this campaign with 2 points 15-17.
After HT we had the momentum to outrun them by 16 points, but with some intelligent plays they had a 10-0 run so our lead was melting like ice on a summer day. Luckily we were still running late so we could enter the last Q with a lead of 10 points 68-58.
Our lads were bringing it home in the 4th under the guidance of Alpha and Pablo in offense, together with our bigs who were ruling under the boards. Everyone shared in the joyful game we can expect from our boys. Amadeo flew to the ring to record the final score 100-79.
Our 3-2 zone put pressure on a lot of shots of Sweden's guards, which had an influence on their shooting %. Unfortunately they had a lot of assists to their big guys, who managed to get also a lot of boards during the first 3 Q's. Despite their better effort, they came up too short in the end and we start this campaign with a 2/2!
Our next opponent will be Norway. They had 2 logical losses against Israël and Ukraine. Normally we've got enough quality to get a 3/3 here.