10.09.2011

Slovenia Left On The Brink

Turning Point: F.Y.R. of Macedonia finished the third quarter with a 13-5 run and Slovenia couldn't recover.

Game Hero: Bo McCalebb did another good job for F.Y.R. of Macedonia with 19 points and 4 assists.

Stats Don't Lie: Scoring a paltry 42 points during the first three quarters tells the story.

Slovenia's hopes of reaching the quarter-finals are now on a knife edge after they moved to three losses in Group F.

With their offense labouring badly for long periods, they paid the price as a buoyant F.Y.R. of Macedonia capitalised with an 68-59 victory to extend their winning streak to an impressive six games.

The first quarter was a classic period of runs as F.Y.R. of Macedonia scored the first seven points of the game. Goran Dragic then almost single handed brought the teams level as he scored seven points on his own.

There was soon a real sense of déjà vu inside the Vilnius Arena as F.Y.R. of Macedonia scored another seven points without reply, a sequence broken once again by Goran Dragic.

The Slovenian offense was misfiring badly and, not surprisingly, F.Y.R. of Macedonia punished them by taking an early double digit lead at 19-9.

Having been the only scorer for the first nine minutes of the game, Goran Dragic was replaced by his brother meaning Slovenia had to find alternatives and they certainly did.

During a devastating six-minute spell, they came alive with a 12-1 run to take the lead after upping their game at both ends of the floor. F.Y.R. of Macedonia then continued the pattern of isolated runs to respond with 10 of the last 12 points to lead 39-31 at the interval.

They continued their good work when they returned to the floor, increasing their lead to double digits by the end of the third period but were rocked by a worrying arm injury to Todor Gechevski.

With Slovenia's offense in disarray and remaining disjointed, F.Y.R. of Macedonia was able to finish the job with relative ease during the remainder of the game, despite the loss of their influential big man.

Slovenia did manage to close the gap to six points down the stretch but it proved to be too little too late.

10.09.2011

Quotes F.Y.R. of Macedonia vs. Slovenia

FYR of Macedonia Center Predrag Samardziski:
"We won another game, but we're not going to be cocky. We gain more respect from teams now, and it can felt on the court. Nobody thinks we're a weak team and they play hard against us. Slovenia is a very good team with a lot of good players, but we played hard and did a very good job on defense. That's how we won every game so far and that's how we won this game. We don't think about a medal yet, but we certainly can do it, because we come to every game trying to win, and we have a chance against pretty much all the teams here. We want to go far, make our fans happy and our country proud of ourselves, but we don't think too far. We have a game against Russia for the first place in the group and we're focusing on that now."

Slovenia Guard Samo Udrih:
"I'm not really sure what's going on with us. We lost to Russia in the last second and since then we don't play like we can. We had a bad loss against Greece and we didn't play well today as well. We didn't play like a team and missed chemistry between us. We need to glue together if we want to win. I think we lost some of our confidence. We can't win when we play with no confidence, and that's something we'll have to recover in time. The game against Finland is like a finals for us. We must win to make the next round and we can't think of an option we're going to lose. We have two days to recover now and it's one game that is the whole difference. Finland is a tough team. They showed it so far. We can't think of them as a weak team. For sure not in this situation. We'll play them like they are Spain."

FYR of Macedonia Head Coach Marin Dokuzovski:
"Before the game against Georgia we had some pressure and it was easy to see that even if we qualified for the quarterfinals we were not playing our basketball. Today, without pressure we played a great game. Because our bench is not that long like other teams, I had wanted to rest some of our crucial players but we wanted to score this win for ourselves and our fans. I thought we always had control of the game."

Slovenia Head Coach Bozidar Maljkovic:
"We played very badly this game. This is the worst I have seen my team play. We were bad offensively and bad defensively. F.Y.R. of Macedonia play very smart basketball and have two great players in Vlado Ilievski and Bo McCalebb. We played without energy which is not our kind of game. I have to forget this and now focus on this next game against Finland."