Alex Murphy was Finland’s best scorer with 20 points.
The Finnish national basketball team’s seven-game winning streak in the World Cup qualifiers was snapped in Bamberg, where Germany defeated Finland 94–80 and secured their place in the World Cup with their eighth consecutive victory in the World Cup qualifiers. Finland already secured its place in next year’s World Cup in August, so only ranking points were at stake, which affect the group draws of the World Cup.
Finland’s best scorer had scored 20 points with 7/9 shooting accuracy Alex Murphy. He did not participate in the camp aimed at the European Championships last summer, but intends to aim for a place in the World Championship team.
– This was not the result we were hoping for, we have to be better, Murphy said at the press conference of the match.
Both teams were missing men playing in the United States. Finland had seven men from September’s European Championships in its composition, Germany three.
Germany won the rebounds 35–23.
– They are a very physical team. They killed us with offensive rebounds, ten offensive rebounds is too many,” Murphy said.
Edon Maxhuni scored 15 points and assisted four baskets. Played his first international match as team captain Sasu Salin had to do a huge amount of work in front of his 11 points, as he only made seven shots in the game under the pressure of the German defense.
– We were a bit soft. A little bad communication in defense and Germany was able to make easy baskets. It wasn’t always clear what to do in defense. They were small things, but Germany punished them, Salin said.
Against Estonia on Monday
Finland started the game actively, stopped Germany’s ball screens and took a 9–3 lead in a few minutes. Germany gave up ball screens, but continued to play the ball near the basket and took a 15-14 lead after less than seven minutes of play.
by David Krämer two threes gave Germany a 22–19 lead after the first quarter.
Finland opened the second quarter with a 7–0 run and forced Germany’s head coach Gordie Herbert to take a timeout. A couple of minutes before halftime, Germany jumped to a 42–35 lead and increased the lead to 44–36 by halftime. Finland had only three assists in the opening half, but nine losses. Perttu Blomgren, Remu Raitanen and Shawn Hopkins recorded their first game minutes in the qualifiers already in the opening half.
Germany came out of the locker room for the second half clearly stronger than Finland and opened the third quarter with a 6–0 win. Germany went back to grinding ball screens offensively and took a 58-43 lead in less than five minutes. Germany went into the last quarter with a 69–52 lead.
Shawn Hopkins’ three-pointer brought Finland within 10 points for a long time (79-69) with 4.40 minutes left in the game. Finland was able to reduce the difference to less than ten points, but could not play for the win.
On Monday, Finland meets Estonia in Espoo.