{"id":485839,"date":"2026-02-27T21:36:45","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T20:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=485839"},"modified":"2026-02-27T21:36:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T20:36:45","slug":"loyds-dagger-stuns-riga-as-poland-steal-it-late","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/loyds-dagger-stuns-riga-as-poland-steal-it-late\/","title":{"rendered":"Loyd\u2019s dagger stuns Riga as Poland steal it late"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"1627\" data-end=\"2005\">Poland edged Latvia 84-82 in Group F of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2027 European Qualifiers: top scorers <strong data-start=\"1782\" data-end=\"1800\">Jordan Loyd 37<\/strong> and <strong data-start=\"1805\" data-end=\"1827\">Mateusz Ponitka 27<\/strong>, while <strong data-start=\"1835\" data-end=\"1858\">Arturs Strautins 27<\/strong> led Latvia. Momentum swung throughout, with Latvia up by as many as 10 (45-35) and Poland stretching to a nine-point lead in the fourth (76-67).<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2007\" data-end=\"2303\">The turning point came in the final seconds: with three seconds left and Latvia down 81-79, Strautins drove, drew a foul and converted the three-point play to put Latvia ahead 82-81. On the next possession, Loyd answered with a clutch three to reclaim the lead and set the final score at 84-82.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2305\" data-end=\"2573\">Latvia also had an 8-0 run late in the fourth (3:50 to 1:14) to erase a 79-71 deficit and tie it 79-79, but Poland\u2019s poise held up at the end. Poland\u2019s key unit \u2014 Zyskowski, Sokolowski, Ponitka, Olejniczak and Loyd \u2014 posted a +9 in 5:31 together in a two-point game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A wild finish at Xiaomi Arena features a last-gasp lead change at both ends<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":485838,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[269,285,383],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-485839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latvia","category-poland","category-world-cup"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2026\/02\/Loyd.jpeg","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485839"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=485839"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=485839"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=485839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}