Announced favorite before the start of the tournament, Serbia takes the door from the knockout stages. The Finns made Nicolas Jokic and others drop this Saturday.
Huge favorite from the Euro Basketball, Serbia of Nikola Jokic was eliminated in the knockout stages by Finland (92-86) Saturday evening in Riga. Despite a still notable performance of their star, the Serbs were surprised by Finnish authors of a high -level match and who will face Georgia or France in the quarterfinals. In the other meetings of the day, the German world champions and Turkey, still undefeated, suffered but came out in front of Portugal and Sweden, while Latvia took the door to Lithuania.
The elimination of the band at Nikola Jokic – already eliminated at the same stage of the competition in 2022 – resonates on the other hand as a thunderclap in this euro that the Serbs had approached with the label of favorites N.1 hung by a large part of the observers. A status obviously favored by the presence of Jokic, considered one of the best players in the world and still author of an individual performance more than honorable on Saturday evening at the Arena in Riga (33 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists).
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But opposite, the team led by the interior Lauri Markkanen, one of the evening heroes (29 points, 8 rebounds, three passes), held out after a superb match, until being released at the end of the game. And in part thanks to Markkanen, already, but also before that at two awarded shots almost blow for Elias Valtonen, who sounded the end of the Serbian adventure at a minute from the term (87-81). The Finns had already set the tone by starting the battler drum meeting (19-9 after five minutes of play).
The Serbs, deprived of their Captain Bogdan Bogdanovic injured during the group phase, obviously resisted, going so far as to take the break (48-44). But thanks to an impressive collective performance, it was Finland, already a quarter finalist in 2022 that tipped the scales.
Germany and Turkey pass
In this euro already marked by the elimination of Spain from the group stage, and as if to recall that the switch to the cleaner matches is nothing of a pleasure, the day had started with two hung matches for Turkey (85-79) and Germany (85-58). Faced with them, Sweden and Portugal, which played for the first time a final phase of the continental competition and could have almost dreamed better.
Faced with the Turks, the Swedes even led five points to the break, and despite a complicated third quarter (26-13) hung on to come back equally within three minutes of the term. It was without counting the still precious contribution of Alperen Sengun, author of 24 points, 16 rebounds, and 6 passes to shelter.
Germany, for its part, also had to wait to get rid of the Portuguese. If the score does not reveal the difficulty of the meeting, the world champions were indeed carried out (32-31) at the break by the 56th world nation in the FIBA ranking. But the dream dreams of Neemias Queta’s teammates (18 points, 11 rebounds) were extinguished in a last one-way quarter (33-7) with no less than seven award-winning shots including three from the former Parisian Maodo Lo.
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Porzingis 7, Mais …
Finally, before the feat of Finland, the derby between Latvia, the host country, and the Lithuanian neighbor turned in favor of visitors, who won 88-79. Despite the performance of Kristaps Porzingis, author of a double-double (34 points, 19 rebounds), the lettons did not manage to take power in a meeting where they have always been led.
