Mercredi 20 août 2014
19h30 Luxembourg – Austria (game C/7) 71-80 (29-24, 14-18, 20-24, 8-14)
Austria pulled away from their hosts Luxembourg late in the game to clinch an 80-71 win on Day 4 action in Group C of the EuroBasket 2015 2nd Qualifying Round.
The Austrians have now improved to 3-1 in the group standings while Luxembourg, despite their great effort, have picked up their fourth defeat in as many games.
Luxembourg gained the lead late in the opening quarter and enjoyed a 39-26 advantage midway through the second frame.
Austria gradually balanced proceedings and used a 6-0 run to claim a 59-53 on a Rasid Mahalbasic lay-up with 4:13 remaining in the third quarter.
Jairo Delgado however reduced to 66-63 at the end of the period with a jumper and everything seemed to indicate the game would go down to the wire.
Enis Murati however was not in the mood for a dramatic finish and scored the first two baskets in the fourth quarter to spark a 12-0 Austrian run, which Moritz Lanegger capped off with a free-throw 3:14 from the final buzzer to give the hosts an unassailable 78-63 lead.
Mahalbasic collected another double-double for Austria, this time of 19 points and 12 rebounds, Murati finished with 14 points and eight boards and Anton Maresch added 13 points.
For Luxembourg, Tom Schumacher had 19 points and Raul Birenbaum added 16 points in defeat.
Jerome Altmann, Assistent Coach Luxembourg
"We lost by only 9 points. We gave all we could, big progress compared to the other games, where we had one good quarter. Today we had half of a bad game, but against a team like Austria, you have to go for 4 full good quarters. We had a good fight today and can leave the court with heads up. Some kind of unlucky, but that is part of the game."
Werner Sallomon, Head Coach Austria
"Very hard fought success, but after the strong game versus Poland, it is for me not a surprise that we mentally were not always present. Maybe some players took it too easy, than you can say what you want as a coach, and nobody’s listening. But I am satisfied with the result, Luxembourg played very well, hit their shots, especially in the first quarter, but than we slowly found our way into the game . Congratulations to Luxembourg for their good game."
Alex Laurent, Luxembourg
"Already in Austria we saw in the second half, with playing good, that we might have a chance, so today we were ready to start the same as we finished there, and in some kind of way we did it and led by 1 point at the half. Some kind of surprise maybe, but we believed in it and fought what we could. After that we wanted to continue, but slowly lost our sense of the game, no more screens, too individually, no more rebounds, they played big and strong under the basket and hit easy shots."
Jozo Rados, Austria
"We started too easy, not concentrated. We underestimated Luxembourg, which is a good team. They played good and strong tonight, they made their shots at the beginning. They gained our respect tonight and we can be lucky we took the game home. »
