FOSHAN, China, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- Poland clawed back from an 11-point deficit before the break to defeat Russia 79-74 in Group I as the second round of the FIBA Basketball World Cup commenced on Friday.
With a perfect record in four matches, Poland is in a leading position to contend for a berth in the last eight.
"It's our first time in 52 years to be in the World Cup. We are almost among the best eight teams, but we don't want to stop," said Poland point guard Lukasz Koszarek.
Aaron Cel had an easy basket with 31.2 seconds remaining to build a six-point lead for Poland, who sealed the win through a pair of free throws from Adam Waczynski.
Waczynski led Poland's scoring with 18 points. Mateusz Ponitka and Damian Kulig added 14 and 10 respectively.
Mikhail Kulagin bagged fives points in a row to open Russia's scoring account. After Poland tied it at 13-all through a pair of free throws from Michal Sokolowski with two minutes remaining, Russia took on a 5-0 run to move ahead 22-16 as the first quarter expired.
Thanks to a better shooting percentage, Russia gradually extended its advantage to 11 points late in the second quarter and led by 40-34 into the halftime.
After Poland trimmed its deficit to one point, Andrey Vorontsevich and Kulagin made consecutive shots behind the arc to once again set up a comfortable cushion.
Waczynski's three-pointer gave Poland its first lead throughout the match with 8:19 on the clock.
"I'm so proud of my team, and the way we are playing," Poland's head coach Mike Taylor commented. "Everybody can see that it's not easy for us. We struggled for three quarters of the game. In the fourth quarter, we kind of solved the puzzle a little bit with our ball movement, finally hit some shots and made some plays."
Kulagin made five three-pointers to finish with a game-leading 21 points. Semen Antonov and Vorontsevich had 11 each.
"We didn't capitalize on our advantage, and let the Polish team come back into the game, especially at the beginning of the third quarter. In some situations, we lost our flow of offense," Russian head coach Sergey Bazarevich pointed out.
"We fought our best. It's devastating to lose like this. We should do better on our shooting," admitted Vitaly Fridzon, who had nine points for Russia.
After the first round, the top two teams from Group A and B are placed in Group I, pending the results of the other match-up between Argentina and Venezuela later on Friday.
In the second round, teams advancing from the same group will not play against each other.
