The first half was good, the second half was forgettable - the Montenegrin national basketball team was defeated today in Tampere, at the start of the European Championship, by Germany 106:76.
Montenegro had the lead in the first half, were in the game, matched the world champions, but then stopped. Germany settled everything in the third quarter and eventually achieved a convincing victory.
"Congratulations to Germany on the victory. We, as in the control matches against teams that are candidates for a medal, had great minutes, and then moments that lasted a quarter, a quarter and a half, to go out on the court as if we had never played basketball. We stayed in the locker room at halftime. I couldn't single out anyone who satisfied in any way in the second half - with play, attitude, energy, primarily in defense. We were soft in the second half, we let them play their game. And when you let the world champion play the way he wants, then that ends up being a 30-point difference," said Montenegrin national basketball team coach Boško Radović after the match.
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As during the preparatory period, today our team had a problem with turnovers (15) and the opponent's offensive rebounding (the Germans had 15 interceptions in attack).
"We conceded 50 points from offensive rebounds and turnovers. That's unacceptable. We'll have to fix the defensive rebounding, if we don't fix that we'll have a problem. Let's move on, consolidate, try to fix the mistakes, which are obvious, but also the ratio that has to be maximum and last 40 minutes," said Radović.
Vladimir Mihailović missed the match.
"We are waiting for him - maybe he will be ready for Lithuania. I hope he will be, but if not, he will be ready for Finland. At this point we do not know if he will play against Lithuania," the coach explained.
The next game is on Friday (15:30) against Lithuania.
"We had a good first half, in the second we lacked focus and energy, we didn't show up. We need to correct our mistakes, forget everything as soon as possible and get ready for the next game," said Igor Drobnjak.
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