After the victory over Egypt, the Greek national team advanced to the semi-finals of the pre-Olympic tournament and will now face Slovenia, led by Luka Doncic.
With Giannis Antetokounmpo out for rest reasons, the National team had an easy task against Egypt and they prevailed in the end with a score of 93-71, which confirmed the predictions.
So the Greek national team made the “two out of two” in the first stage of the 2024 Pre-Olympic competition, against the Dominican Republic and Egypt and won the 1st place in the group. This means he will face the Slovenian superstar of the Dallas Mavericks Luka Doncic in the first game.
Giannis Antetokounmpo was left out of the game against Egypt, for reasons of rest, although there is concern for Costas Antetokounmpo who left at the beginning of the second period with knee problems and has not returned to the game since. Our national team had five players with double figures (Papagiannis 16p., Mitoglou 16p., Papanikolaou 15p., Charalambopoulos 13p., Larentzakis 12p.) and very high accuracy rates.
2024 Pre-Olympic Tournament: Semi-final schedule
After Greece’s 2nd victory in the 2024 Pre-Olympic competition, the two semi-final pairs were established.
Specifically, our national team will face the Slovenian Luka Doncic in the first semi-final match of the day on Saturday evening (6/7, 5:30 pm), and the day’s program will be closed with the second semi-final match between Croatia and the Dominicans. Republic (6/7, 21:00).
As you know, the winners will only have the chance to claim one ticket to the Olympic Games in the final on Sunday (7/7, 9:00 pm).
Semi-final games
Saturday 6/7
17:30 Greece – Slovenia
21:00 Dominican Republic – Croatia
Spanoulis: “It’s important to have role models like Giannis and Doncic”
Vassilis Spanoulis spoke about mutual respect with Luka Doncic, explaining that it is very important to have role models like Slovenian superstar Mavericks and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
“For another game we distributed the ball very well, we had 34 assists and we forced the opponents to make a lot of mistakes. This shows our identity and it is important that we have an identity as a team. We also saw some things that didn’t work well, it’s good that we have now seen them fixed. The people are always on our side and we will all go together for victory on Saturday”.
He then said: “I haven’t seen Doncic yet. There is great respect between us, first as people and then as athletes. Needless to say he is a great player. He’s a great kid and a nice role model. I am happy that we also have a superstar who is a great person and leader. It is important that such standards exist. We have a plan to deal Doncic, but I won’t tell you now. There are many other good players in Slovenia and we should pay attention to them too.”
The national coach said: “It’s important for us and one of our advantages is that we have a lot of good defensive players. But it is not just an individual issue, but also a group issue. We have to rotate and defend in the right way. We have high IQ kids and many good creators. Our game is based on this and a good creation. We get our best shot, we have tall guys who can shoot, we have a lot of upside.
We try to play as well as we can. We haven’t reached our potential yet, we have a lot of room to improve. The players know it, I know it too. The most important thing is to win. When I took over the team, the most important thing I wanted was to add identity, attitude and character. I believe these are in and when you have these elements, sooner or later the results will come. We are not afraid to face defeat, we are a winning team and that is what we will try to show on Saturday.”
Mitoglou: “If I wasn’t playing I would pay to see Antetokounmpo vs Doncic”
Dinos Mitoglou, in his remarks after the victory over Egypt, referred to the difficulty of all the matches of the tournament and the fact that they will face Luka Doncic.
“The fight between Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Doncic will be great. I think it will be a great fight. We can’t wait to see it. If I didn’t play basketball and it was just a fan I would pay and come see it,” he said.
“The conclusions from these first two games are to improve our mental state, because Egypt gave us a hard time and we need to be more mentally prepared and not bend to the pressure. I think this is very important and I see it as a lesson for us to continue because we have to play much stronger teams, like Croatia and Slovenia. Apart from that we got two very important wins and progressed to the semi-final on Saturday.
You can’t easily tell what games we have played so far. They are not easy games. No game from this tournament is easy because obviously there can be a little rest and generally a mistake will be made and these teams are relentless. As you saw, Croatia lost to New Zealand. He doesn’t want too much done. The levels are too close. You have to be very good mentally. Be mentally and physically ready. But I think we have made steps forward in these two days. Join us as we face a very strong team on Saturday.
I can’t tell you how we will play against Luka Doncic, but I think our tactics will be so difficult for him. We have not spoken, we will start tonight and tomorrow morning preparing for this game because it is clear that we will go day by day every time, game by game because as I said nothing is easy but tomorrow our preparation starts.
Slovenia is a whole, not just Doncic. Slovenia has so many players and is generally a very good squad. He has great players, not just Luke. It is a team sport. And they have quality in their tall and short heads with shooters and energy. So I think it will be a very strong game, it will be decided in the details and it will be clear who wants more.
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