{"id":106997,"date":"2025-08-30T15:59:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T15:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/106997\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T15:59:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T15:59:08","slug":"italy-run-away-from-georgia-late-for-first-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/106997\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy run away from Georgia late for first win"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The official EuroBasket app<\/p>\n

Download Now<\/p>\n

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LIMASSOL (Cyprus) – Italy collected their first victory of the FIBA EuroBasket 2025 after fighting off a strong effort from Georgia in a 78-62<\/a> success to avoid being another upset victim. <\/p>\n

After an opening loss to Greece, Italy remained perfect in history against Georgia with a 6-0 record, including in the Group Phase of FIBA EuroBasket 2017. The Georgians came into the game on a high after surprising reigning champions Spain in their opener. <\/p>\n

Turning Point<\/p>\n

Spurred on by some great support from their fans, Georgia were hanging until the end of the third quarter. Italy then pulled away with Gianmarco Pozzecco’s team reeling off a 16-0 run to go from up three points to a 66-47 advantage. <\/p>\n

TCL Player of the Game<\/p>\n

Saliou Niang showed he could rise to the moment as the 21-year-old turned the game around with his energy on both ends. He led the Italians with 15 points including two three-pointers and some highflying moments. Niang, who had 11 points in the opening game also grabbed one rebound.<\/p>\n

Simone Fontecchio shrugged off his nightmare opening game to score 14 points while also tallying 4 rebounds and 2 assists. Georgia’s Goga Bitadze led all scorers with 22 points. <\/p>\n

Stats Don’t Lie<\/p>\n

Italy committed only three turnovers in the second half. Georgia converted only 11 of 19 free throws for 58 percent and Italy held Georgia to just 14 percent on three-pointers (3\/21) – their lowest in a game at EuroBasket.<\/p>\n

Bottom Line<\/p>\n

With a victory in hand, Italy will look to make it back-to-back wins on Sunday as they square off against Bosnia and Herzegovina. Georgia were unable to collect a second win and now face a difficult challenge versus Greece as they hope their win over Spain was not for naught. The Georgians have never won their second game of a EuroBasket.<\/p>\n

They Said <\/p>\n

“I don’t know how we played, and to be honest, I don’t care. But I am sure that they played hard. Everything we asked of them they did it. They are really perfect players and I love coaching them.” – Gianmarco Pozzecco, Italy<\/p>\n

“We tried to share the ball a little bit more and be a little more focused on offense and don’t rush too much. At the beginning, we were rushing things a little too much. We just have to stay composed and know what we need to do on offense.” – Simone Fontecchio, Italy <\/p>\n

“It was a big game and they were playing with a lot of energy. They were a good team and we knew that. We just really had to respect them and keep fighting and do the best we can.” – Darius Thompson, Italy <\/p>\n

“We know what our goal is. And after two games we are 1-1. We will go all the way with everything we have.” – Aleksandar Dzikic, Georgia<\/p>\n

“We feel bad, especially because we lost by this many points. At the end of the day, we are a very resilient team. We fought in the game. There were long stretches of very good basketball, showing togetherness. We were even winning this game in the third quarter. They had a great streak of a lot of points and we couldn’t catch them. But I want to thank the guys for fighting until the last season.” – Beka Burjanadze, Georgia<\/p>\n

For more quotes, tune in to the official post-game press conference! <\/p>\n

FIBA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The official EuroBasket app Download Now LIMASSOL (Cyprus) – Italy collected their first victory of the FIBA EuroBasket…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-106997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}