PIRAEUS (Greece) - Maybe it is only the Semi-Final of the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament, but it's almost impossible to find a more exciting matchup in the basketball world.
Luka Doncic's Slovenia against Giannis Antetokounmpo's Greece, in front of over 11,000 fans in the Peace and Friendship Stadium.
"If I weren't playing basketball and I was a simple fan, I would pay to watch [this matchup]." - Dinos Mitoglou
Greece enter the Semi-Final bout as the top seed from Group B, while Slovenia were second in Group A, behind Croatia. The winner moves on to Sunday's Final and will face Croatia or Dominican Republic.
Key matchup
Sparta is a short drive away from Piraeus and, make no mistake, in true Spartan spirit Luka Doncic and Giannis Antetokounmpo will carry their teams to the Final or die trying, leaving this battle holding their shield, or on it.
Doncic has extended his triple-double streak to three consecutive games, dating back to the OQT in Lithuania in 2021. He opened up his account in Greece with double digits in points, rebounds and assists against Croatia, but struggled with his shot as Slovenia dropped a game.
He said that his lack of energy was not fair towards his teammates and that he wanted to fix it. So he came back two days later with another triple-double, this time against New Zealand, to send Slovenia through.
The Slovenian superstar averaged 31 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists per contest in the group stage, while turning the ball over just five times in 72 minutes of action.
Giannis Antetokounmpo missed nearly three months of action after his late NBA season injury, but he looked like he hadn't missed a day of basketball in his first game in Piraeus, destroying the Dominican Republic with 32 points on 11-of-11 shooting in just 18 minutes of work.
The Milwaukee Bucks star sat out Greece's second game against Egypt, to give his body more time to heal and get back to 100 percent ahead of the Semi-Finals.
He will be the only Antetokounmpo on the court on Saturday. Thanasis is here as a spectator, in a walking boot, to support his previously torn Achilles tendon, while Kostas played just seven minutes against Egypt and suffered an injury that will keep him on the sidelines, too.
X-factors
The other guys. Namely, Gregor Hrovat and Kostas Papanikolaou, two forwards whose three-pointers are often worth more than just three points on the scoreboard, because they inject the rest of the team with confidence and make the opponents' defense hesitate whether they should double-team the stars, or help off of Hrovat and Papanikolaou.
While everybody expects Doncic and Antetokounmpo to climb north of 30 points, this game could come down to which hero has a better sidekick.
Stats don't lie
For Greece, the idea would be to involve everybody on the offensive end and keep moving the ball the way they did in their first two games, averaging 31.5 assists.
For Slovenia, the key area would be perimeter shooting. Greece made a staggering 48.3 percent of their shots from three-point range, so Slovenia head coach Aleksander Sekulic needs to have a plan not only about stopping them, but also ensure his guys hit more than 23.2 percent of their shots from the same distance.
Past matchups
This will be the 21st battle between Greece and Slovenia. They played their first game back in 1995 and Greece won 82-73, while the most recent was last summer and ended in another Greek win, 88-77.
However, both of those were friendlies. The first official game in a major event took place in 2005, with Slovenia defeating Greece 68-56 at the FIBA EuroBasket in Serbia and Montenegro.
Vasilis Spanoulis and his teammates did bounce back after that one, and went on to climb the top step of the podium later on in 2005.
The latest official game between these two was at FIBA EuroBasket 2017, with Slovenia winning 78-72. Luka Doncic and his teammates kept the momentum going and won the whole event afterwards.
Overall score: 12-8 for Greece.
They said
"The matchup between Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Doncic will be exceptional. I think it will be an exceptional battle. I look forward to it. If I weren't playing basketball and I was a simple fan, I would pay to watch it." - Dinos Mitoglou, Greece
"We're looking forward to this. Both teams have the same goal. Of course, home team is the favorite, but I think we can also go into this game knowing we have chances to win. You need to prove this on the court, show it on the court. They are the favorites, we are the underdogs - that doesn't mean anything when you step on the court. I'm looking forward to this. This is the first time that (Luka and Giannis) are going to play each other playing for their national teams, it's going to be interesting. They have a hell of a team, but I believe playing the right way, we can also have a chance to win." - Slovenia head coach Aleksander Sekulic.
"We have plans (how to stop Luka), but I will not tell you now. I'll keep it for Saturday. For sure, it's Luka as the leader of the team, but there's also other players that can play really good basketball." - Greece head coach Vassilis Spanoulis
"These are two of the three best players in the world right now, together with Nikola Jokic. For sure, for the crowd this is going to be a nice matchup. It's going to be an intense game, a lot of basketball skills on the floor, but we are here to help Luka, to be of good help to him defensively and offensively, trying to get a win against a very good Greece squad." - Klemen Prepelic, Slovenia.
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