The basketball players remained in the game for advancing to the semi-finals of the pre-qualification for the Olympic Games

Coach Diego Ocampo and David Böhm at the training of the Czech national basketball team before the departure for the pre-qualification for the Olympic Games in Paris, August 9, 2023, Prague.

Tallinn – The Czech basketball players beat North Macedonia 94-82 in their final game in Tallinn in Group A of the pre-qualifiers for the Olympic Games and kept their chance to advance to Friday's semi-finals in Gliwice. To do this, they need any win by Israel over Estonia, or a victory by the home team by 24 or more points in the duel, which will start at 18:00 CEST.

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Photogallery: Qualification of basketball players for the 2024 Olympics

The best scorers of the winners were captain Vojtěch Hruban and Tomáš Kyzlink with 18 points, Vít Krejčí added eight assists to the 16 points. Martin Peterka (14 points) and David Böhm (13) also scored in double digits. Martin Kříž reigned under the basket with ten rebounds. TJ Shorts' 27 points didn't help the opponent avoid their third defeat in the tournament.

Hruban scored the first Czech basket only 165 seconds after the attack, and Ocampo's selection quickly turned the score from 0:4 to 13:6 thanks to three-pointers by Ondřej Sehnal and Hruban. Krejčí added another and secured an eleven-point lead. The most valuable player of the Champions League from last season, Shorts, who scored six points, was joined by other scorers on the North Macedonia side, and the opponent reduced the score to 16:19 by the end of the first quarter.

The national team's scoring fast was broken at the start the second ten minutes overall after three minutes and 39 seconds converted by Spencer Svejcar's six. Nevertheless, the opponent pulled back the loss and turned the score from 26:20 to 35:30 during another Czech failure. The Czechs countered with a ten-point streak thanks to baskets by Šimon Puršl, Hruban and triples by Peterka and Sehnal, turning the score to 45:37 and going into halftime with a six-point lead.

The second half started with two triples by Krejčí, joined by Böhm and Hruban, and the lead was 14 points. Shooting from a distance will significantly help the Czech team, and at that moment he had 12 converted three-pointers from 18 attempts. Ocampo's team's lead grew, and with a 9-0 run, they took the longest lead of the game by 20 points.

However, North Macedonia corrected the eleven-point deficit by the beginning of the last quarter, and with a five-point streak, they even came close to 71:79. Krejčí's three successful sixes, Kyzlink's one, and Hruban's three in the meantime secured a 15-point lead for the Czech team. In the end, the favorite took care of himself, he got ahead 94:75 and the opponent :39, 71:58)

Czech line-up and points: Hruban 18, Krejčí 16, Böhm 13, Sehnal 8, Kříž 4 – Kyzlink 18, Peterka 14, Puršl 2, Svejcar 1.

North Macedonia's most points: Shorts 27, Andonoski 14, Stojanovski 13.

Fouls: 22:23. Free throws: 27/18 – 20/13. Three-pointers: 16:7. Rebounds: 42:25.

Table:

 just mitigated the loss.