Czechia – Croatia 95:83, Important win! The basketball players also defeated Croatia and dominated the tournament in Pardubice

At the end of next week, coach Ronen Ginzburg’s team will present themselves in another test in Hamburg, where they will challenge home Germany on Friday and a day later they will fight for the position with Italy or Serbia .

In contrast to Friday’s battle in Bulgaria, pivot Ondřej Balvín and point guard Vít Krejčí from Oklahoma rested from the sixteen-member Czech squad, which will be the only Czech representatives in the NBA after the Tomáš Satoranský leaves. Only Viktor Půlpán intervened briefly in the game. Neither Tomáš Vyoral nor Lukáš Palyza started. Croatian presented three representatives from the best league in the world – captain Bojan Bogdanovic from Utah, Dario Saric from Phoenix and Ivica Zubac from Los Angeles Clippers at Enteria Arena.

In the beginning, the Czechs closed in on the opponent’s lead and led just three times in the opening quarter. Every time it was a three-pointer. Jaromír Bohačík responded twice to Croatian baskets at the start and in the second case made the score 5:4. After that, Martin Peterka’s accurate strike meant a 14:12 lead, and Ondřej Sehnal made sure the score was 18:17. However, the opponent made five three-pointers in the first quarter compared to the Czechs’ three and held a 27:21 lead.

At the start of the second quarter, Bohačík went up by 10 points on his second successful three-pointer of the match, but the Croats immediately returned to a seven-point lead. Although the Ginzburg team immediately reduced it at 28:32, Bogdanovic started his team’s 7-0 streak with a three-pointer and the home team’s deficit grew to 11 points. The Czech national team managed to pull back at 39:43 at halftime, largely thanks to David Jelínek, who scored nine points on three shots in 130 seconds.

At the beginning of the third quarter, Jelínek, Jan Veselý, two baskets by Satoranský and finally five points by Bohačík took care of the turnover until 52:49. More than three thousand fans erupted again as Satoranský scored again and Peterka secured a five-point lead with a triple. Mario Henzonja reacted to that with a lightning equalizer, but the Czechs were in the mood and after Peterko’s third three-pointer of the game entered the last ten minutes with a lead of 68:59.

Peterka added another three-pointer in the 32nd minute, and a basket by captain Hruban and a three-pointer by Patrik Auda made the difference 16 points. Peterka moved the biggest difference in the match to two more points with his sixth triple. In the end, the Croats rectified the situation, but on the Czech side James Karnik, a native of Canada, scored his first point with a three-pointer in his second appearance with the national team.