2024-08-06 12:50:47
Michals Hlebovickis has been the head coach of the Polish U21 and U23 national teams in 3×3 basketball in recent years, but he has played and coached in Latvia for a long time in his career, and speaks Latvian fluently.
“Latvia is a very experienced team. Francis Lācis started playing 3×3 two years ago in the U23 Nations League with my son Oskar. Nauris [Miezis] and Karl [Lasmanis] there are two leaders, they both scored 20 points against us,” Hlebovicki described the opponents after the game in which Latvia beat Poland 22:16. “Latvia has a very good system, Raimis (Raimonds Feldmanis) is a very high-level coach in both five-on-five and three-on-three basketball, Latvia is getting stronger and stronger every year. They all have perfect bodies for 3×3 basketball – all have a shot, rotate very well. Super team!”
“The paradox is that we did not play badly against Latvia today. We had two minutes of chances, and Latvia knew that they had already won the group and that probably influenced it. I know they can play better, for them the game was more like… I don’t want to say training, but it looked like it didn’t matter to them win or lose. Now the semi-finals are starting for them, we still have opportunities. Of course, we wanted to win, but the game didn’t matter to us either, it will be decided by the USA match,” said Hlebovicki at a moment when he didn’t know that the USA would lose to the Netherlands and that Poland would actually qualify for the quarterfinals. Later that evening, Poland lost to Lithuania 15:21.
“Before the tournament, I was 100% sure that Latvia would fight for medals. Latvia is already the Olympic champion. Yes, the team has changed a little, but that’s great [Edgars] Krumins and [Agnis] Chavar is also with him. I had no questions about it at all because I have watched them play Ghetto Games, what a system they have. They train together all the time, the U23 team also won the Nations League group two weeks ago in Ventspils, Latvia has a 3×3 basketball system and that’s why it’s going so well,” concluded the Polish coach, expressing that he can’t give advice, because coach Raimonds Feldmanis knows very well what to do to win medals. “I would advise Latvia not to change anything. It’s OK.”
2024-08-06 12:50:47