Croatia beats Hungary in the opening match of Eurobasket 2017.
Croatian basketball team has managed to secure its first hard-fought win at the opening of the Eurobasket championship in Cluj, Romania, reports Index.hr on September 1, 2017. Croatia beat Hungary 67-58 in their FIBA EuroBasket 2017 Group C opener.
Croatia opened the match fantastically with the advantage of 6:0. However, the match didn't play out so easily for the Croatian team. The team struggled for the next 30 minutes; there was no precision in shooting, the rhythm slowed down and, at some moments, it even seemed as though the players were afraid to make a shot. Croatian defence was all over the place, while the Hungarian team played aggressively finally outscoring Croatia in the third quarter.
Adam Hanga's injury was a crucial turning point of the game. It was then that Croatia managed to control the jump and strengthen the defence. Thanks to stronger defence and yet another stellar performance by Bojan Bogdanović and his teammate Dario Šarić, Croatia managed to crush any hope Hungary had of winning the game.
Bogdanovic put up 23 points and Dario Saric scored 15 points for Croatia, while the most efficient Hungarian players were Zoltan Perl with 12 points and David Vojvoda with 11.
Later in the day (Friday), Group C will see matches between Spain and Montenegro, and Romania and the Czech Republic.
Croatia will play the second group match on Saturday (7.30 P.M.) against Romania.
CROATIA - HUNGARY 67-58 (20-20, 19-16, 13-17, 15-5)
CROATIA: Krušlin, Popović 2, Simon 5, Šarić 15, Ukić 6, Žorić, Planinić 6, Bender 2, Buva, Ramljak, Tomas 8, Bogdanović 23
HUNGARY: Sku, Allen 5, Keller 8, Wittmann 2, Hanga 5, Vojvoda 11, Kovacs, Toth, Ferencz 7, Perl 12, Karahodzic, Eilingsfeld 8
FGA: Croatia 24/47 (51%), Hungary 25/71 (35%)
Two-pointer: Croatia 19/28 (68%), Hungary 20/42 (48%)
Three-pointer: Croatia 5/19 (26%), Hungary 5/29 (17%)
Free Throw: Croatia 14/15 (93%), Hungary 3/8 (38%)
Rebound: Croatia 29 (24 defensive + 5 offensive), Hungary 40 (19 + 21)
Assists: Croatia 11, Hungary 12
Check out the game highlights here:
Excerpts translated from Index.hr
