Serbia – Germany
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Have a summer, Germany.
Dirk Nowitzki went into the Basketball Hall of Fame, and now his homeland stands atop the men’s international basketball world.
Tournament MVP Dennis Schroder of the Raptors scored 28 points, the Magic’s Franz Wagner added 19 and Germany capped off an unbeaten run through the World Cup by holding off Serbia 83-77 in the final on Sunday night. It was Germany’s first World Cup title; its previous top showing in the event was a bronze at Indianapolis in 2002.
Germany went 8-0 in the tournament, becoming the fifth consecutive World Cup champion to go unbeaten. Schroder’s postgame news conference was briefly interrupted by his teammates, who doused him with water as they jumped and chanted in celebration.
“It’s an unbelievable group,” Schroder said. “It’s unbelievable going 8-0.”
Germany coach Gordie Herbert took the job in 2021, and his first official order of business was driving to see Schroder. They spent three or four hours together that first day, building a relationship that is now good as gold.
“It’s a little bit of a surreal moment,” Herbert said. “It’s like I told the players. It’s a tremendous group of players, but we were a team first. Guys cared about each other and they challenged each other.”
Aleksa Avramovic scored 21 and the Hawks’ Bogdan Bogdanovic added 17 for Serbia (6-2), which lost the title game for the second time in the last three tournaments. It was routed by the U.S. 129-92 in the 2014 gold-medal game, and little was expected of the team this summer — merely because its best player, Nikola Jokic of the NBA champion Denver Nuggets, decided not to play and instead opted to rest for the coming season.
But Serbia went on a surprise run, fueled by inspiration the team took from the loss of reserve forward Borisa Simanic. He was fouled late in a first-round win against South Sudan, needed surgery that night for internal injuries and then a second surgery was required a few days later to remove one of his kidneys.
Simanic will get a medal. But it’ll be silver, after Germany simply proved too…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/germany-beats-serbia-win-first-192934588.html?src=rss
Author : NBC Sports
Publish date : 2023-09-10 19:29:34
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