Nymburk basketball players will present themselves again in Prague. And I have to defeat Igokea
The situation in the group was confused by the surprising win of Igokey on the field of Bilbao, undefeated until then, 84:81. There, the Bosnian team showed that although they lost the injured talented Serbian Mario Nakič and the pivot De`Shawn Stephens, who transferred to Sassari, from the first duel with Nymburk, they did not lose their strength. The quality of the other supports was highlighted even more, led by Bryant Crawford, who scored 33 points in Nymburk’s first game.
Other important supports include Nikola Tanaskovič, shooter Antabia Waller and American Kendrick Ray, who is very well known to Nymburk fans. In the 2017/18 year, in his rookie season, he was one of the key figures of Nmburk. They then played for Maccabi Tel Aviv, Le Mans, AEK Athens, Petkim in Turkey and Promitheas Patras in Greece. Although he only played for Nymburk with Martin Kříž and Petr Benda from the current squad, it will still be an interesting encounter with one of Nymburk’s most prominent American reinforcements. After all, he only needed to play an average of 19 minutes per match to win the KNBL Most Valuable Player award.
Igokea is an eight-time Bosnian champion and a traditional participant in the Adriatic League, where last year it finished fifth and this year it is seventh after ten rounds with five wins. It is the fourth time in the Champions League and the third time in a row, having advanced from the group in the two previous years. In the year before last, it was eliminated by later champion Burgos and last year by Oostende.
Nymburk has to watch especially for the opponent’s rebound and also for its limited territory. Igokea is the best team in the competition in terms of the number of attempts given and shots for two points. On the other hand, the opponent’s weakness is free throws, where the success rate is only 60 percent.
The match is played in Prague’s Královka hall, where the next day will be followed by the Women’s European League match between ZVVZ USK Prague and Olympiakos. Nymburk, like the women, joined the initiative of the Koše foundation against drugs, and at both matches there will be a collection of liquid soap and fruit bags for the Children’s Center in Krč. Fans can bring these necessary products, which will then be handed over to the children.
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“We don’t just go into the match with the goal of winning, but give it our all and play at the edge of our strength. It’s good that the last match with Opava looked the way it did and that we had to fight. I hope that everyone has remembered that and we have to start the match with Igokea that way, so that we can think about possible progress,” Lukáš Palyza, a Nymburk player, is clear. “You can’t think that it would be best to win by at least eighteen points, because the match can develop in a different direction and you have to react to it. But I have already experienced several very successful matches here, which even against very strong opponents ended clearly for us, so I would certainly not give up ahead of time. But we have to play really well to be able to think about something like that. I hope that it will also be an impulse for the fans to come and support us. I hope we got a bit of a sweet tooth with a decent performance against Bahcesehir, when there was good energy in the hall and they certainly enjoyed it,” Palyza added.
“For us, it’s a match for everything. We have to win and we will give it all our strength. Every match starts from zero, only towards the end we decide how many points we need to win by. Of course, if there is a chance to erase the deficit from the first match, we will try to do so, but again, we must not be crazy, because the key is to win. as this may be our last home game in the given Champions League, we would appreciate it if as many fans as possible came to support us. We will try to repay them for their performance,” Nymburk basketball player Jakub Tůma lures the audience into the stands.
“We need to win. This means that we must stop the opponent’s powerful weapons. This is primarily a quick transition to the attack, which is mainly driven by their Americans Crawford and Kendrick Ray. Then it will be important to guard the defensive rebound, as Igokea has a lot of physical players who go for rebounds. If we manage to eliminate things, I believe that we will have a good chance to win,” Nymburk coach Ladislav Sokolovský described the strengths of the visiting team. “In attack we have to move the ball a lot, then we should find free shots. Igokea is a strong team, but their performances are a bit uneven, so it will be more about what we allow and what we don’t allow them,” added coach Nymburka.
David Schwab