Correspondence from the Czech Republic
“Riding!” It belongs to Iga Świątek, but Alexander Balcerowski also has his motivating like at EuroBasket. Equally exciting, though less parliamentary, but that’s fine – it’s important that the 21-year-old center is full of energy, and he has recently been accused of his shortcomings.
Friday is on The first match in the tournamentMateusz Bonnetka was the most highly praised. It is understandable – he scored 26 points, made 9 assists, scored the most important throws. But after the match, coach Igor Milicic insisted that the whole team – headed by Balcirovsky, should be appreciated for the victory over the Czech Republic in a ratio of 99:84. We want to take a step forward as a team. He explained that Olek can do two in this tournament.
Balcerowski threw Vesely into the ground
More beautifully – and with much motivation – he spoke about it just before the tournament, at the first conference in Prague. – Your parents must be responsible for the talent they possess. He played a great first half for Croatia and hesitated several times in the second half. And it has a lot of these frequencies. At EuroBasket, he will be among the Euroleague basketball players, NBA. She has to show that she belongs in this world.
On Friday, Balcerowski faced someone who’s a dean in this world, who’s been dealing cards for years — both in the NBA and in Europe. The pole competitor in the under-basket fight was a 32-year-old former Denver Nuggets and Washington Wizards player who is today a player BarcelonaJan Wesley is the best player in the European League.
This is just a short entry for Wikipedia, but the facts are that Vesely is one of the biggest when it comes to playing under the basket. An intelligent guy with a solid routine who can handle just about everyone.
But Balcirovsky did not lose this battle. Not only that: he definitely won it! The Poles’ first four points were his coms – including those gained after a massive immersion that silenced fans at the O2 Arena for a while. And then it was – Balcerowski scored a total of 14 points, lost only one of the seven throws of the match, added seven rebounds and as many as four assists, perfectly passed to Ponitka, who scored the basket. “Our little Nikola Jokic,” said the journalists in the hall, half-jokingly.
And Vesely? He scored 17 points, but as many as five of them from free throws, he only had two rebounds.
But there’s something else about Balcerowski’s impressive performance that eludes the stats – after some successful action, his opponents were afraid to let him go. And when the middle player set the screens, for example for AJ Slaughter, two players’ attention was focused on the undershirt – the one who was hiding Balcerowski and the one who tried to stop Slaughter. And then an American with a Polish passport had plenty of room to throw. And he used this freedom often and to great effect – scoring as many as 23 points.
Also – or perhaps most importantly – thanks to Balcerowski we won with the Czechs thanks to fitness and athletics. We won the fight on the boards 36:24, thanks to the rebounds in attack we were better on points than recoveries (16:3) and scored points from the field three seconds off (52:38).
Both Milicic and Balcerowski could breathe a sigh of relief.
Another challenge, the angry Finn
And his talent has been talked about for a long time: he is 21 years old, and three years ago Mike Taylor took him to the world Cup to China. In 2021, a player from Spain, Gran Canaria, received the EuroCup Rising Star Award – the second largest European competition. In the summer it seemed that they would see his potential in the NBA, Until the end we hoped he would be the second Pole to be picked in the draft, alongside Jeremy Susan. But unfortunately, he was not among the 60 basketball players recited during recruitment.
However, Balcerowski has the conditions for a rich European career. His height is 219 cm, his muscular figure, the ability to throw for three people – many trainers can be cut for such a player. In the Czech Republic, the pole took the first step Europe She started talking about him louder and louder.
in Saturday However, he may face an even greater challenge. At 2 pm, the Poles will face Finland, after defeating Israel (87:89 after extra time), and Most motivating will be Lauri Markkanen – the NBA Under-Basket player who went 33 points like blood in the sand on Friday..
And on Saturday he thirsts for revenge. However, we can be quiet about Balcerowski’s motivation to fight.
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