In the first match of subgroup B, the German national team won with the result 76:63 (17:13, 21:18, 19:12, 19:20).
Before the match, the jersey of German national team legend Dirk Nowitzki with number 14 was raised in the Cologne Arena. The solemn ceremony was also attended by the leadership of the National Basketball Association (NBA) Dallas “Mavericks” – in 2011, Nowitzkis led the Dallasites to the NBA championship.
Johannes Thiemann was the top scorer for Germany with 14 points and six rebounds, Maodo Lo and Niels Giffy scored 13 points each, and Dennis Schroeder had 11 points. Lo and Schroeder also dished out five assists each.
Gershon Yabusele scored 18 points for the French, Rudi Gobert had 11 points and 12 rebounds, and Tomas Ertel had six points and eight assists.
In the first match of this group, Bosnia and Herzegovina defeated Hungary with the result 95:85 (17:23, 28:23, 28:17, 22:22), and in the second match in the duel between two European giants, the current champion Slovenia with 92:85 (27:27 , 24:21, 18:19, 23:18) defeated Lithuania.
After the round-robin matches, the four best teams of each group will enter the playoffs, which will take place in Berlin starting on September 10. The teams of groups A and B, as well as the best teams of groups C and D, will meet in the round of 16.
This is the fourth time that the European Men’s Finals have been played in four different countries.
In 2017, the players of the Slovenian national team became European basketball champions, becoming champions for the first time. Slovenia, which defeated Latvia in the quarter-finals, defeated Serbia in the final. In the fight for third place, Spain beat Russia.
The Latvian national team has participated in the finals of the European Championship 14 times, but this time they failed to qualify for the finals, remaining in the last place in Group H behind Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece and Bulgaria.
The European Championship will take place from September 1 to 18.
