By Rigas Dardalis/ dardalis@eurohoops.net
The first day of Eurobasket was full of surprises and in Koper, Petteri Koponen and Finland beat Turkey for the first time since 1955. Despite having three NBA players as opponents (Turkoglu, Ilyasova, Asik) the Finnish guard got what he wanted and as he explains European hoops are quite a different affair: “Ι guess it’s different basketball, it’s much more team orientated, we play as a team, specially in defense. We have our own system and we trust that. Also as a team we shoot the ball good, ok maybe not that good today, but also Turkey’s shot was in trouble. But yes, it’s a different kind of basketball”.
Koponen himself has been drafted by the NBA, his rights are currently owned by Dallas and he doesn’t exclude anything in the future: “You never know. Of course I always thought of the NBA, it’s a dream for many basketball players, but with the situation in Russia, playing for Khimki year by year I try to improve as a player and you never know what is going to happen. Now I try just to focus in Eurobasket, take it game by game and try to see where this team can go”.
The secret of the winners was Shawn Huff’s newborn son as he says to Eurohoops with a smile: “I hope so! I hope he brought a lot of good luck! In any game we expect to play well, if you don’t expect that you don’t have any chance. When you expect that, sometimes good things happen. Some times you can beat a team like Turkey”.
So can we see them in the second round? Huff and his teammates believe so: “At least 12 guys on this team we have the confidence that we can, even before this win. It was a tough win and we continue. We still have four games and we have to continue preparing in order to play well”.