Defending champion Slovenia made it through to the quarterfinals of the European Basketball Championship with more effort than expected.
The team around the once again brilliant NBA star Luka Doncic beat Belgium in the round of 16 in Berlin despite being behind in the final quarter with a clear 88:72 (44:41). As so often, Doncic (Dallas Mavericks) was the best pitcher of the game in the Mercedes-Benz Arena with 35 points.
Spain progressed in the evening after a thriller. The world champion eliminated Lithuania in a duel at eye level with 102:94 (83:83, 40:45) after extra time. Ignas Brazdeikis saved the Balten, who had just reached the round of 16 after three defeats at the start of the tournament, with a tip-in in the last second of regular time into overtime. Lorenzo Brown was the decisive man with 12 points in the extra five minutes as Spain now face Finland or Croatia.
Slovenia, who inflicted their only preliminary round defeat on Germany in Cologne, play either Ukraine or Poland in the round of eight on Wednesday and are once again favorites. At the start of the final round, the European champion struggled for a long time in front of 9411 spectators. The Belgians with their top scorer Emmanuel Lecomte (16 points) led at the beginning of the final quarter (64:63/31st minute), after that the Slovenians pulled away with a 17:0 run to 82:65 and brought the victory safely home.
Previously, co-favorite France had made it into the quarter-finals as the first team after some tremors. The team around NBA star Rudy Gobert defeated Turkey in the round of the top 16 after extra time 87:86 (77:77, 43:35). The quarter-final opponent of the ex-European champion will be determined on Sunday (6:00 p.m. / MagentaSport) between Serbia with superstar Nikola Jokic and Italy.
Gobert (Minnesota Timberwolves) was the best player with 20 points and 17 rebounds for the French, who had made a false start to the tournament at the beginning of the group games against hosts Germany a week ago.
The Equipe Tricolore was 16 points ahead at times, but after a miserable third quarter (6:22) the game against the numerously supported Turks was completely open again. Apart from Lithuania, all teams from German Group B progressed.