Luka Doncic breaks through in Manila as Slovenia escapes Italy for 7th in FIBA World Cup

MANILA, Philippines – Third time is the charm for Luka Doncic.

Doncic refused to end his Manila trip without a win and steered Slovenia to an 89-85 win over Italy for seventh place in the FIBA World Cup before a mammoth crowd at the Mall of Asia Arena on Saturday, September 9.

Impressive on all fronts, Doncic finished with game-highs of 29 points, 10 rebounds, and 8 assists with 3 steals as the Slovenians finally got one in Manila after they bowed to Canada and Lithuania in their last two games.

Slovenia matched its highest World Cup finish when it also placed seventh in the 2014 edition.

“We fought hard every game, sometimes you’re successful, sometimes you’re not,” said Slovenia head coach Aleksander Sekulic.

“I think seventh spot is not a bad result even though we always have high hopes, high goals, especially when you have such player as Luka on the team and the players around him – they fight hard, they play hard, they play together.”

Doncic ended this tournament with a total of 216 points, joining an exclusive list with 11 other players who scored at least 200 points in a single World Cup, joining the likes of Dirk Nowitzki, Oscar Schmidt, and Drazen Petrovic.

The Dallas Mavericks star, though, took a backseat on offense down the stretch as his teammates delivered the big hits to weather the Italians’ comeback storm.

Off a Doncic assist, Jakob Cebasek sank a three-pointer that regained Slovenia the lead at 86-85 with 40 seconds left before Gregor Hrovat and Zoran Dragic buried their free throws to ice the win.

Dragic churned out 10 points and 4 rebounds, while Mike Tobey added 12 points on a 5-of-6 clip from the field for the Slovenians.

Marco Spissu and Simone Fontecchio put up 22 and 16 points, respectively, for the Italians, whose eighth-place finish is still their best in 25 years since they ranked sixth in 1998.

The game marked the final appearance of Italy captain Luigi Datome for the Azzurri as he retires from the national team.

“As a captain, I’m proud of this team for what we did. I think we showed that we could compete at the highest level,” said Datome. – Rappler.com

Add a comment

There are no comments yet. Add your comment to start the conversation.

Delfin Dioquino

Delfin Dioquino dreamt of being a PBA player, but he did not have the skills to make it. So he pursued the next best thing to being an athlete – to write about them. He took up journalism at the University of Santo Tomas and joined Rappler as soon as he graduated in 2017.