In the past two weeks we faced two higher ranked opponents. Czech republic is considered to be a #2 in the group, and Portugal follows as #3. While the Czechs had a quiet tournament so far, the Portuguese have a more chaotic one. They won in the opening of the EC against the group favourite - Spain, but this cost them some ent, and they paid heavily in their last game against Hungary. Luckily we were also able to take advantage of that, and have achieved a very nice victory yesterday.
The game against Czech republic
(80489) was quite close until the final minutes. I can't forgive myself for messing with the tactics in the last minute. For the whole weekend I left everything set to 3-2 zone, predicted outside focus and normal pace (so tactics motion) and forgot about it. Then 15 minutes before the deadline I left the focus prediction blank. Even I don't know why I did it, since it makes no sense for such game. So when I saw the tactics outcome, I just hoped it won't be a very close match with a loss, meaning we lost a win due to this last second mumbling.
Although the Czech quickly gained a solid lead of approx. 10 points, we managed to match their pace afterwards. By the half-time they were ahead by 7, then they even got to +12, but again we neutralized this and went to the final 12 minutes only 6 points behind. Seven minutes to go
Herman "HHH" Hansson forced a three pointer, which got us to 82-85. Unfortunately, the opponent answered with a similarly impressive three pointer, and then scored an additional one. And soon afterwards another, the score was then 96-82. After that, we didn't have the strength to get back again, so the game was pretty much sealed. Luckily for me, since even with an outside prediction it would have probably not be enough. But it is still a reminder that you should never change a game setup in the last minutes
Before the game against Portugal we were unlucky with the healing process of
Kristian Forsbratt, who missed some playing time in the last week by only one day. So we had to accept the fact of his limited role for Monday. The Friday update also didn't bring any good news for us, since our big men were severely underprepared for such a tough game. Due to this, I decided to try an unconventional tactics with
Sören Häggin on a PF position, and playing 2-3 zone, since our inside capabilities were rather limited. Of course I hoped they would attack inside, but unfortunately for us, they went with motion, where 2-3 zone is not very effective. On the other hand, I have seen good games of teams (including us) playing 2-3 against outside tactics, since some of the defensive inferiority can be brought back by rebounding. Also with Häggin we gained some offensive power, so all hope was not lost.
The game itself was very tight
(80494). Portuguese quickly started with their shooting practice, but luckily for us, we were equally successful in the Q1, which ended 35-32 for Sweden. Unfortunately, Portugal started Q2 with a 16-0 in five minutes. After our guys finally woke up, we slowly but steadily came back, and got to 58-61 by the end of Q2.
Portugal were much stronger in Q3, and their advantage slowly crawled up to +13 (104-91). Their highest lead was a few minutes into Q4 (108-93), but suddenly they started calling timeouts, which is always a good sign (for the opponent - us). We increased the pace and leveled the score 3 min to go. In the last minute Häggin scored for 128-126, and got an extra FT - 129-126. After a fine work in defense we had two additional free throws. 131-126 with 19 s to go. They tried a three pointer, missed, but then got another chance and scored. 131-129. This time it was Hansson who had two free throws. He missed the first one, scored the second one, so 132-129. Four seconds to go, Portuguese scored a three pointer for 132-132. But then our MVP,
Herman HHH Hansson scored a buzzerbeater for a sweet victory
