Riga star Miezis discovers FIBA 3x3 World Tour with "a lot of confidence"

LAUSANNE (FIBA 3x3 World Tour) - In a matter of 2 months, Nauris Miezis has established himself as one of the new stars of 3x3 basketball. We spoke with the 26-year-old Latvian star before his FIBA 3x3 World Tour debut with Team Riga at the Lausanne Masters on August 25-26.

FIBA.basketball: How excited are you ahead of your World Tour debut?

Nauris Miezis: I'm really exicted! This is a big tournament for us. We're a new team, we never played there. It will be my first time in Switzerland and I can't wait to be there.

You had to replace 2 players before the Lausanne Masters. What was the selection process for their substitutes?

We were looking for players who have the same skillset [as Edgars Krumins and Karlis Lasmanis, who should be back for the Debrecen Masters]. Since then, we practiced and played a tournament together. Chemistry was one of our strengths and now it is true that this is our biggest question mark.

Which are the teams you're excited to play?

I think there are a lot of very strong teams in Lausanne. Most of them we know because we have played against them in challengers already but there are other strong teams we don't know like Krakow R8 Basket and Saskatoon.

You won your last 3 international events [including the FIBA 3x3 Europe Cup, where they represented Latvia and Miezis was named MVP]. Talk about the confidence level at the moment.

We have a lot of confidence right now. We showed the rest of the world that we're not a small team. Confidence is good and is going up. It's one thing we've realized watching Novi Sad Al Wahda: you have to play with confidence.

Now that you're at the World Tour, what are your next goals?

The goal this season is to do everything we can to reach the World Tour Final. We want to be there. The long-term goal is to represent Latvia at the 2020 Olympics. It's amazing that 3x3 is now in the Olympic Games! That's every little kid's dream!

FIBA