Dominican Republic scored a crucial 74-68 win against Finland in day 4 of the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup on Tuesday at the Bizkaia Arena in Bilbao, Spain.
Dominican Republic moved to joint second place with Ukraine in Group C, behind the unbeaten Team USA who routed New Zealand for their third-straight win.
The Dominicans, who are coming off a 76-63 win against New Zealand on Sunday, had a slow start in the game, but got into their rhythm in the second period.
After leading by just one point after the first 10 minutes of the match, Dominican Republic built a comfortable 41-32 lead at the half behind the eight-point performance of Eloy Vargas in the second quarter.
Vargas and the Dominicans sustained the momentum early in the third period. The South American squad led by as much as 18 points in the 7:56 mark of the third quarter before Finland trimmed the lead down to 10 points heading into the final canto.
Finland threatened to make a huge comeback in the fourth period as they pulled within three points after star guard Petteri Koponen knocked down a three-pointer with 1:16 left to play in the game.
However, Dominican Republic answered back with four conversions from the foul line before Manuel Fortuna sealed the win for his squad to improve their chances of advancing to the round-of-16 of the tournament.
Vargas led Dominican Republic with 18 points and 13 rebounds, while Houston Rockets forward Francisco Garcia added 16 points on 6-for-9 shooting from the field with four three-pointers. Eulis Baez racked up 12 points and nine boards, while James Feldeine posted 10 points and six assists.
"I'm happy and proud of the way the guys responded and handled adversity. Especially proud of the guys who came off the bench. It was a full team effort. As a coach and staff we are proud of that," Dominican Republic coach Orlando Antigua said after the match via FIBA.com.
Antigua also praised his squad for playing with a lot of sense of urgency as proven by their 49 rebounds compared to Finland's 28 boards, while also limiting their opponent to just 35.7 percent shooting from the field.
"We did a great job of controlling the boards. We wanted to make it difficult. We wanted to control and limit them to less than 40 percent (shooting) from the floor. We did that," Antigua said.
Dominican Republic will have to bring their "A Game" on Wednesday, though, to have at least a chance of winning against USA, while Finland will look to bounce back against Turkey, who lost to Ukraine, 64-58, on Tuesday.
Watch the highlights of the crucial match between Dominican Republic and Finland below, while the box score of the match is available here.
- Contribute to this Story:
- Send us a tip
- Send us a photo or video
- Suggest a correction
