„Once again we showed our strength and played good basketball again,“ said three-time EuroLeague champion Ergin Ataman at the press conference.
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In the packed „Turkcell Basketbol Gelisim Merkezi“ they began to dominate from the first minutes and dealt a painful blow to the Lithuanians 94:66 (27:13, 28:21, 20:13, 19:19).
This was already the seventh consecutive victory for the Turkish team in the world championship qualifiers, while Rimas Kurtinaitis’ men with three wins share 4-6 places together with Iceland and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Only one other team has no losses in the qualifiers. That is Poland.
„We started the game well – both in offense and defense,“ said E. Ataman. „In offense, we always chose the right shots and made them. In the paint, we always found Yurtseven, and we used Osman and Bon in the ‘two against two’ game. All players made a huge contribution, we played as a strong team. The atmosphere in this arena was great again. We continue to focus on our main goal – playing in the world championship.“
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The hosts were led forward by the duo of Cedi Osman and Omer Yurtseven.
The first scored 22 points, and the second – 17 points.
The center admitted that he knew very well the problems of the Lithuanian national team when assembling the team for this FIBA window.
„The most important thing is that we stayed focused because we knew Lithuania came without several players,“ said Omer Yurtseven. „I think we are well coordinated – showing good individual and team basketball. Our defense can sometimes falter, but we stayed focused and got back on track. I think we need to pay the most attention to defense. No matter which players Lithuania brought, keeping them to 24 points in the first half is a great achievement. We need to continue to focus on that.“
