Italy, July 30 – The campers were up bright and early for day three of Basketball without Borders Europe. Once again the young players got down to the fundamentals of life as a basketball player with a skills and drills clinic conducted by the NBA players and coaches.

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After training it was time to get down to the competition as the campers rejoined their teams. Andrei Kirilenko’s Jazz got straight down to business beating the Hawks 61-48. Closely followed by the Bucks who defeated the Bobcats 73-68. But the best performance of the morning was reserved for Zaza Pachulia’s Bucks who defeated the Grizzlies by an amazing 42 points to win 81-39!

Each team comprises of a mix of players from different countries across Europe and even the NBA players were surprised at the variety of countries that are represented. “There are youngsters from everywhere, from Sweden down to Spain,” said Andrei Kirilenko. “It is very interesting because before people only used to come from traditional basketball playing countries such as Serbia & Montenegro and now people are coming from all over, even from places such as England where football was traditionally more important.”

Even by the end of the morning the campers were still in awe at being coached by NBA players. Alexis Ajinca, a 17 year old from France was coached by Primoz Brezec. “It’s cool,” he said. “We see them on the TV and now they are next to us and they’re coaching us, so it’s great.”

After lunch the campers got the chance to get even closer to the players in a Q&A session and Andrei Kirilenko, Dirk Nowitzki, Primoz Brezec and Zaza Pachulia were on hand to answer campers questions and give advice. “I think it is very important to work with young players, I was one myself only seven years ago,” said Andrei Kirilenko.

This was going to be a unique day for the campers, not only had they got personal advice from the players but they were now going to create their own basketball shoes. Nike let the kids design their own unique shoes through Nike iD. Campers logged onto www.nikeid.com to select the shoes they wanted, the colors and had the opportunity to add their signature. Once they’re produced the campers will be receiving them at home.

The Games at the end of the day were closer than those in the morning and the Memphis Grizzlies started playing a lot better as a team, although they couldn’t beat Nowitzki’s Mavericks who won the game 62-51. The Jazz kept up their form and showed that they are going to be one of the teams to beat as they defeated the Bobcats 76-48. But the closest game of the day was between the Bucks and the Hawks. At the end of the game both teams were tied at 65 and excitement grew as the overtime started. But the Hawks were the stronger team today and won the game by 3 points defeating the Bucks 68-65.

Tomorrow is the last day of the camp and all teams will be looking to impress not only their coaches but themselves.