Bagatskis: The reason for our defeat was attack, not defense

The head coach of the Ukrainian national basketball team commented on the team’s withdrawal from EuroBasket 2022.

The Ukrainian national basketball team lost in the 1/8 finals of EuroBasket due to poor attacking play. This is what the head coach of the team, Ainars Bagatskis, said.

According to the specialist, the playoff match was difficult for both teams, but the Ukrainians at the decisive moment of the meeting simply stopped entering the ring.

“It was a tough game that we expected. That’s how it should be in the playoffs. The whole game was difficult, especially in terms of attack, for both teams.

I would say that the reason we lost was attack, not defense. In EuroBasket, we were not the best defensive team, but for some of our attacking decisions, losing, the Poles immediately punished us. And three percentage points…

The Poles offered us a defense where we could make a lot of open three-point shots from the corners. We expected it, but most of those shots didn’t convert. My congratulations to the Polish team.

We didn’t lose much. I said the defense was not the best, but for example, the two best players in Poland, Ponitka and Slaughter, hit less than 50% of their shots. We defended them, shut them down. But their throws did not hit. Why didn’t we hit them? This is a question.

The score was almost always tied, except for the last minute. We were down -7, but with 30 seconds to go we only had -2. One good defense, one good shot and we’re back in the game. But it didn’t work,” the official website of the Basketball Federation of Ukraine quoted Bagatskis as saying.

It will be remembered that the Ukrainian national basketball team lost in the 1/8 finals of the men’s EuroBasket 2022 to the Polish team with a score of 86:94.

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