Doncic and Slovenia advance to Olympic basketball semifinals

The victories are all Doncic when he wears the uniform of his country.

Doncic had 20 points, assists and 8 rebounds, and Slovenia beat Germany 94-70 on Tuesday in the men’s quarterfinal opener.

Zoran Dragic gave Slovenia a quick start with his first six shots and finished 11 of 13 in the direction of his 27 points.

Doncic is the undisputed star of the Slovenians – perhaps of the entire basketball tournament – but all the attention he attracts means that opposing defenses have to leave the rest of the players open and Doncic is content to give them the ball.

“He’s the leader of the team,” Dragic said. We know that and we settle for that, but we have a lot of weapons in our team and it’s simple to play with him because when he plays like 3 guys they have to stay with him. “

Doncic wasn’t encouraged at the start of the 10-hour home, but he picked it up again on the spot with his scoring and play to prevent Germany from making a dent in Slovenia’s lead.

The Slovenians will face unbeaten France or Italy in the semi-finals on Thursday.

They are 17-0 competing with Doncic, now to climb olympic gold to the European Championships they won in 2017.

“Great organization of boys playing together. Excellent alchemy. There is no ego in the team,” slovenian coach Aleksander Sekulic said. “There is no selfishness and they play hard in each and every game. “

Slovenia won their organization by beating world champions Spain 95-87 on Sunday to win one of the most sensible seeds, thus avoiding having to play the United States, France or Australia until the semi-finals.

But Germany was quite difficult for a while, coming back after Slovenia’s quick start, before Doncic and his team-mates walked away by cunning at the start of the halfway point.

“It’s clear that they have one of the players in the world, but he’s not alone,” German coach Henrik Roedl said.

“When everybody hits, it’s very difficult to play against this team. “

Maodo Lo scored 11 points as Germany finished its first Olympic appearance since 2008, when it was led by Dirk Nowitzki, Doncic’s teammate in his rookie season in Dallas.

Doncic was the most sensible scorer of the tournament with 28. 3 consistent problems with the game at the organizational stage. For the time being, back-to-back play, he finished just ahead of the first Olympic triple-double since LeBron James for the United States in 2012.

Both took advantage of their last opportunities to qualify for the Olympics by winning two of the 4 qualifying tournaments they took position last month.

Slovenia has many more objectives than simply getting here.

Slovenia took a 23-12 lead with nine of their first 12 shots, Dragic at 4-for-4, 25-14 after one, but Lo scored 3 points in just over a minute and a half through the second. to take the lead 32-31.

Slovenia temporarily regained the lead and took a 44-37 lead in the locker room when Dragic scored 3 points for the final basket of the half.

Dragic made 3 to open the part of the moment and pushed back the double-digit lead and didn’t come close again.

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More PA: https://apnews. com/hub/2020-tokyo-olympics and https://twitter. com/AP—Sports

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