Latvians trim Italians for crack at 5th spot

MANILA, Philippines — It’s not for the coveted title anymore but Latvia’s amazing run in its FIBA Basketball World Cup debut took another page.

After falling short by a whisker from clinching a semifinal ticket, Latvia fended off Italy with a slim 87-82 win to stay on track for a possible fifth-place finish in the FIBA World Cup yesterday at the Mall of Asia Arena.

Andrejs Grazulis put on a show with 28 points highlighted by the dagger trey in the last 24 seconds as Latvia held on after nearly wasting a double-digit lead in the final three minutes.

Grazulis, a 6-foot-8 forward, shot near perfect from the field with 12-of-13 accuracy including 3-of-3 from downtown while adding six rebounds, an assist, a steal and a block in 33 minutes of play.

His supernova performance on 92-percent shooting was the highest mark for a player with more than 10 attempts in the World Cup proper in over 30 years.

Backstopping Grazulis was floor general Aigars Skele, who fired almost perfect as well with 5-of-6 mark including 2-of-2 from the rainbow country. He added nine assists, four rebounds, a steal and a block in an all-around outing.

Arturs Zagars chipped in 10 points and six assists with leaders Davis Bertans and Arturs Kurucs producing nine each for the wards of Italian coach Luca Banchi against his home team.

Latvia, which bowed to Germany, 81-79, the other night, will try to conquer another tough rival in either Slovenia or Lithuania for the No. 5 spot tomorrow.

“It’s a good win despite the very short time to recover energy, mentally and physically. It’s not possible to prepare but one more time, it’s a matter of going deeper to the values of this squad,” said Banchi as Latvia became the first debutant team to play in the fifth-place game after Czech Republic in 2019 in China.

“They came back. They found the vibes and rhythm to play with our usual flow. It’s nice to see the team finally perform in a very tough and very good game. It’s a good win,” he added.

“It’s a tough game. We started slow but we got our gears rolling and the game started to become a bit easy. We just played our basketball. We’re happy with the victory,” shared Grazulis.

With less than 24 hours to prepare, the Latvians actually looked at a lost early in the duel, staring at a 10-23 deficit as Italian aces Nicolo Melli and Luigi Datome hit their marks right away.

Even without NBA ace Simone Fontecchio due to a health issue, Italy took control, 38-30, in the waning minutes of the first half but Grazulis caught fire by rifling in nine points in Latvia’s searing 16-4 rally to steal the driver’s seat,  46-42, at the turn.

With Skele, Zagars, Bertans and Kurucs joining the barrage, Latvia took command in the second half and led by as many as 14 points for what seemed an enough separation for the win.

Latvia held an 89-79 upperhand in the last 3:48 after Grazulis’ hook shot but the world No. 10 Italy, like the storied European powerhouse that it is, refused to go down without a fight.

A Marco Spissu trey capped a 13-5 final hurrah in the last 41 seconds to push the Italians to within 82-84 only for Grazulis to put on the finishing touches for Latvia, which has become the revelation squad in the World Cup.

Latvia’s run included massive wins against Olympic silver medalist France and World Cup champion Spain in Jakarta before slaying another giant in Italy here in Manila.