After the Czech Republic, the Montenegrin women's basketball team was also defeated by Belgium (87:53) at Eurobasket, but the impression against the European champions is certainly more positive than the performance at the premiere.
"I'm happy that there were 30 minutes of good play, both in attack and defense," said coach Jelena Škerović at the press conference.
And, after the opening six and a half minutes, when the scoreboard in Brno showed 23:0 for the rival, it seemed that an even bigger disaster than minus 45 against the Czech Republic was to come.
"Apart from the start of the game and the result, which was very difficult, we later showed that we could have played good basketball for 40 minutes if we had started with the same energy, defense and offense. It's nice that we increased the number of good minutes compared to the first match - this is a great experience for these girls, this is the goal of this group," added the coach.
A lot was different compared to the first match.
"We hit open shots that we missed yesterday. There was more confidence, aggression, we believed... Overall, there is a big difference compared to the match with the Czech Republic. The problem is not the difference in the end, but how we played and what we planned to do, we achieved against the champions," believes Škerović.
The next match is against Portugal on Sunday (20.15:XNUMX p.m.) - it does not guarantee a place in the next round, but it is very important for Montenegro.
"So that match is over, the girls will be able to rest tomorrow and we will prepare for the match. It is evident that Portugal is quite physically strong and aggressive and we will have to respond to that - today's match showed that the girls can believe. As they say in our country, it will be a match of "blood and knives" - Portugal wants its first victory at the European Championships, and we are weakened and with a young team we are looking for satisfaction in everything we have done this summer", concluded the coach.
Marija Leković showed many good things against the European champions.
"We started very poorly both in attack and defense, but in the second quarter we worked on some details - we started attacking and scoring and everything was much better. We are a young team, without experience, we are trying to give our best and we showed that sometimes we can play well, and sometimes it's not so good because we don't have many games like this," emphasized the new Valencia basketball player.
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