After beating Georgia, Slovenia’s basketball players around superstar Luka Doncic can prepare for a World Cup duel with Germany. The USA also landed their second success.
Slovenia can only theoretically be pushed out of one of the top two places in Group F. It is more likely that the Slovenians will make it into the intermediate round with a third preliminary round win against debutant Cape Verde on Wednesday. In that case, the duel between Doncic and Germany’s Dennis Schröder on Sunday would rise. Only with a very high defeat against outsiders Cape Verde can Slovenia still be eliminated.
Doncic with 34 points
As in the first group game, Doncic, the Dallas Mavericks point guard, was the outstanding player and scored 34 points. In the opening win over Venezuela it was 37.
The Germans have already been determined as the winners of Group E, but on Tuesday (28.08.23, 9.30 a.m.) they want to achieve a third win in the preliminary round against Finland in order to have a better starting position. In 2022 Germany met the Slovenians with Doncic in the squad twice: At the home European Championship in Cologne there was a German defeat in the preliminary round, in the World Cup qualifier in Munich a few days earlier there was a win.
USA with second success
Top favorites USA celebrated their second befitting victory in Group C in the second game. After the 99:72 against New Zealand, star coach Steve Kerr’s team had no problems at all even without the really big superstars with two-time European champions Greece at 109:81 (50:37) in Manila. Austin Reaves was the best thrower of the very dominant Americans with 15 points.