RIGA (EuroBasket 2015) - It may not have been an instant fit, but Blake Schilb appeared perfectly comfortable in the Czech Republic line-up as they opened EuroBasket 2015 with an impressive defeat of Estonia on Saturday.

The American-born forward began his professional career with CEZ Nymburk back in 2007 and having since married and started a family in his adopted nation, was awarded citizenship earlier this year.

But while the 32-year-old had no problems setting down roots in the Czech Republic, finding his place in an already-established national team required some work.

Both Schilb and his team-mates admit that it took some time for the veteran wing to find his place in the squad that narrowly missed out on the Second Round at EuroBasket 2013.

However, nothing seemed further from the truth as he went for 14 points in the Czechs' opening Group D success.

"I thought the jersey looked good on me, no?"

"I feel good, it's the first time I actually made some points throughout this summer," smiled Schilb.

The Czechs won just two of their nine tune-up games ahead of arriving in Riga, but Schilb feels that is what helped bring them together.

We have changed our path towards positivity and we are on that way now. - Schilb

"It's just a matter of building the chemistry, which I think we did during the friendly matches," he added.

"I think that us not doing as well as we would have liked to in the friendly matches gave us some adversity.

"It let us know what we need to do to win, because we knew what we were doing when we were losing games.

And Schilb could have a key role to play in driving the Czech Republic along that path, as he provides another reliable scoring option to take some of the load off stars Jan Vesely and Tomas Satoransky.

That is certainly something the duo themselves would welcome.

"Blake hasn't always been shooting his open shots, he has been looking for other guys so we told him that we need him to score and that this could be a huge help for us. He has shown this already," Satoransky said.

"It will help because a lot of the focus for the defence is Jan, because they know what he can do, and hopefully this can open the space for other players."

Vesely added: "I'm happy that he played like this. During the preparation he was working very hard to try and fit in with the team and that hard work paid off."

Head coach Ronen Ginzburg also recognises the effort Schilb has put in to fit in, and echoes the sentiments of his stars.

He said: "It is not easy to come to this group and in 20, 25 practices be an important part of the team and because Blake is a nice guy, it took him some time to get used to the other players.

"But in the last two games he has played great for us and it is a big help to have his outside shooting and ability to pass the ball inside to players like Jan."

And if Ginzburg's key pieces can continue to fit together as well as they did on Saturday, they could well force their way into the quarter-final picture.

Go to eurobasket2015.org for complete coverage of EuroBasket 2015.

FIBA