NICOSIA (FIBA EuroBasket 2021 Pre-Qualifiers) - Sylven Landesberg stole all the attention on Thursday, so Cyprus decided to keep him quiet on Sunday. The plan did not work, as Austria escaped with a comfy 81-71 win away from home.

Turning Point: It was 4-on-4 or even 4-on-3 all game long for Austria, with Cyprus coach Pantelis Gavriel deciding not to help off of Landesberg, or double-team him when he has the ball.

Austria used the extra space on the floor to perfection, executing through Thomas Klepeisz from the outside, and Rasid Mahalbasic was patient enough to come up with 10 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists on the inside.

Once Landesberg joined the scoring in the second half, the lead kept ballooning and Klepeisz hit a huge three-pointer to send the gap back to double digits when Cyprus tried to pull off a late comeback.

Stats Don't Lie: Amazingly, Cyprus owned a 23-2 edge in points from turnovers, but everything else went the Austrian way. They won the field goal shooting (42%-52%), rebounding (25-42), second chance points (9-22), points in the paint (18-30), and bench points (35-22).

Game Hero: Sylven Landesberg followed up his 47-point outing from Thursday with a 20-point game in Cyprus, but 15 of those came after the break. With the entire defense gravitating towards him, space opened up for Klepeisz to pick up Game Hero honors with 21 points on 7-of-12 shooting from the field, including 5-of-10 from the great beyond.

Game Notes: Who would've guessed it - Austria are leading the group at 3-0! Cyprus (0-2) aren't done with this window just yet, they host Great Britain (0-1) on Monday.

They Said: "We did a very good job in controlling the tempo of the game. We faced problems in the first 10 to 12 minutes, when our opponent scored eight three-pointers. But we corrected it, and only conceded six three-pointers. We knew that they would load their defense on Sylven (Landesberg), but others stepped up and took care, it was a team win." - Michael Coffin, Austria head coach

"Cyprus were very good in controlling the game and with a good style of basketball. They took good care of the ball and were hard to face in transition and defense. They were very good in shooting the three-point shots. When we controlled the defense and the rebounds, we controlled the game, but they remained close. It was dangerous to have them within a striking distance, especially when playing at home, but we are happy to grind out for the win." - Thomas Klepeisz, Austria

"Today was a different game than the first one against Austria, since the last game they had a different roster. But we also didn't have Razis and Stylianou, so we also had a different approach going into today's game, in offense and mentality. Today we played tough. We wanted to start aggressive from the beginning and we started well and were ahead. We shot many threes which showed a problem to get close to the basket and put the ball inside, which also prevented us from going often to the free throw line. We also had less rebounds and we lost some defensive rebounds which at the end decided the game. On the other hand, we worked on our turnovers and we only had eight, which is low and we also had 23 points from turnovers of the opponent." - Linos Gavriel, Cyprus head coach

"For a big part of the game we were competitive, against a strong team who have the luxury to field a good naturalized player. After the game against the Great Britain, he forced us to put more attention to stop him. But Austria have a roster of other good players. I agree with our coach that we didn't go close to the basket and we were forced to shoot threes, although we had good percentage. But we didn't take contact shots and have free throws. Austria punished us, but we will learn and improve." - Christopher Razis, Cyprus

FIBA