Sergey Monya rescued Russia with a three-pointer at the buzzer against F.Y.R. of Macedonia on Monday night in Vilnius to clinch first place in Group F at the EuroBasket.

With 2.5 seconds remaining, Monya, the captain, caught an inbounds pass from Aleksey Shved, stepped behind the arc and spun before shooting and banking in the shot to give Russia a 63-61 victory.

As the buzzer sounded, Russia’s players charged onto the court from the bench along with coach David Blatt to celebrate with Monya because the victory kept the team unbeaten and also set up a Quarter-Final with Serbia.

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“It was a big shot,” Monya said. “There was very little time to do something. I had to act fast. I told Shved to pass me the ball, he did and I went up for the shot. It’s really a great feeling. It was a very tough game.”

Had Russia lost, they would have face Lithuania, the host nation, in the last eight.

“Now we will face Serbia in the Quarter-Finals,” Monya said. “We will gather some energy and study Serbia the best we can because we don’t plan to stop here.”

F.Y.R. of Macedonia had nothing to hang their heads about after the game.

One of the surprise packages of EuroBasket 2011, Marin Dokuzovki’s side nearly won a seventh straight game.

“It was a very difficult game,” said Macedonia guard Vlado Ilievski.

“It came down to the last second and then Monya made a big shot.

“We had a chance to win the first place and it’s very disappointing.”

The game was played at a tempo the Macedonians would have liked, and if they had made their free-throws, first place would have been theirs.

While shooting nine of 21 from long range, F.Y.R. of Macedonia converted just 10 of 18 shots from the charity stripe.

Russia won despite hitting only five of 18 from the arc, the biggest of those coming from Monya.

Andrei Kirilenko, the EuroBasket 2007 MVP, made just one of nine shots from the floor for Russia and had two points.

Macedonia will now have to quickly forget the setback and prepare for their next game.

“We’ll need to recover from this quickly because the next game is against Lithuania,” Ilievski said. “We will play them in front of 15,000 people in a new arena.

Shved was outstanding again for Russia, scoring 14 points, handing out four assists and corralling six rebounds. Bo McCalebb had 16 points and Pero Antic, the F.Y.R. of Macedonia captain, poured in 15 and also grabbed 10 rebounds.

Read the original article at FIBA.com.