Estonia staged a terrific fourth-quarter fight-back and took a late lead only to fail in their bid to upset Latvia in EuroBasket qualifying Group B.

The Latvians prevailed 72-67 to improve to 4-1 and clinch at least a second-place finish in the pool with one game remaining against Portugal.

They will be hoping the Portuguese (1-3) upset FYR of Macedonia (3-1) later on Wednesday.

In the battle of Baltic teams, Latvia appeared to be in command at 58-44 early in the fourth quarter but Estonia clawed back the deficit and took a 65-64 lead after a pair of Janar Talts free throws with 2:48 remaining.

The Estonians scored just two points the rest of the way.

Uvis Helmanis made two at the charity stripe with 1:40 remaining to put Latvia back in front, and Kristaps Janicenoks scored the next four points - two at the line and the other two on a lay-up - as Latvia went in front at 70-65 with 53 seconds to go.

After Kristjan Kangur missed with a jumper, Latvia rebounded and added to their advantage before winning by five.

Andris Biedrins had 16 points and eight rebounds for Latvia.

Estonia killed their chances with woeful 19 of 32 (59.3%) free throw shooting.

Kangur had a game-high 21 points for Estonia, who fell to 1-4.

Üllar Kerde (Estonia head coach): "This game was very difficult for us. We fought well, but not good enough. Congratulations to team Latvia."

Kristjan Makke (Estonia player): "I think we fought pretty good, all the things coach told us in the locker room we followed, but the Latvian team had more luck and skill."

Nenad Trajkovic (Latvia head coach): "Most important is that we won this game. We knew that this game was very important for us because by winning this we are now very close to the EuroBasket. We did a very good job in defense, but in offense we had a little bit of a problem. Our key players got in foul trouble very fast and so we had to change our game tactically and that didn't let us feel comfortably."

Uvis Helmanis (Latvia player): "The game was tough. We had some problems with motivation in the last few days. By the end of the game we lost Biedrins and Berzins and we had to play without centers. Three minutes to go we were already behind one point, but we played good in the end and were lucky a little bit, so we won this one."