Luxembourg has lost the first game of the pre-qualification tournament for the basketball World cup 2023. On Thursday-evening, the team of head-coach Ken Diederich took a big lead early in Bratislava, but lost against Slovakia in the end, the final score was 73:65 in favor of the hosts.
Game-report:
Luxembourg (starting 5: Rugg, Laurent, Grün, Vujakovic, Gutenkauf) had a great start into the game and led 18:5 after only 5 minutes behind a strong Clancy Rugg and 2 quick “3-pointers“ by Aley Laurent. However, the hosts were able to reduce the gap point by point over the next minutes as they kept playing with their inside-players and looked for shots around the rim. 2’06 m tall Brodziansky was succesful unde the baskets and Slovakia took its first lead after 15 minutes on a fast-break dunk by Andre Jones (31:30). Slovakia made it tough for our national team to get quality shots in the second quarter and had a 2-point-lead going into the break (42:40).
In the third quarter of the game, Slovakia kept looking for possibilities to score inside, playing with their talented big man Brodziansky, while Luxembourg struggled to make shots or even to create good shots and only scored a total of 9 points in this period – Slovakia went into the final quarter with a 10-point-lead (59:49).
In this final quarter, Luxembourg finally hit another outside shot after Laurent’s two 3-pointers to start the game. Immediately, the gap was reduced to 4 points with 4 minutes remaining. The decision in this game came down to the final minutes: Slovakia did not make a lot of long shots either, but they kept scoring in the paint. Körner hit a big shot with 90 seconds remaining to give Slovakia a 9-point-lead and the hosts were able to win the game in the end.
Brodzianksy had a game-high 25 points, Rugg led with 21 points and 20 rebounds (half of all team-rebounds), Laurent added 13 points.
game stats –> stats_Slovakia_Luxembourg
On Sunday (18:00 o’clock), our national team will play the second game at home (Coque) against Kosovo. The team counts on your support to fight for a victory in this game.
The second game of group B (Kosovo – Island) ended 80:78 in favor of Kosovo.
Press-reports (will be updated)
– lequotidien.lu –> Artikel_quotidien
– rtl.lu –> Artikel_rtl.lu
– wort.lu –> ARTIKEL_WORT.LU
Foto: Maya a Robert Straus
