The third tournament of the FIBA ​​Basketball Qualifiers for the final spots to attend the Olympics witnessed a “duel” between Luka Doncic and Gannis Antetokounmpo, two top stars of NBA basketball, as they represented the team. The national team competes for a place in the Paris Olympics. Antetokounmpo won!

The duel took place in the semi-finals of the tournament held in Piraues (Greece). In that match, even though Antetokounmpo was not the most brilliant factor, he and his teammates still defeated the Slovenian basketball team 96-68, even though Doncic scored 21 points.

Previously, in the group stage (Group A), Doncic “carried the team” but still did not help Slovenia take the top spot in the group. They lost to Croatia 92-108 even though Doncic scored a triple-double (scored 26 points, had 11 successful rebounds and had 10 assists).

In the final match, Doncic with a double-double (scored 36 points and had 10 assists) helped Slovenia defeat New Zealand 104-78.

After being eliminated in the semi-finals, Doncic’s Slovenia (who is a star of the Dallas Mavericks team) only ranked 4th overall, having to “shatter the dream” of participating in the Olympic arena.

Meanwhile, Antetokounmpo’s Greece (playing for Milwaukee Bucks) reached the finals, defeating Croatia 80-69 when Antetokounmpo scored 23 points and had 8 successful rebounds.

That means, Antetokounmpo has brought Greek basketball back to the Olympics for the first time since 2008. This will also be his first Olympics.

Because he was too emotional to speak, Antetokounmpo ceded the speech to teammate Georgios Papagiannis (27 years old, playing for AS Monaco in LNB Elite in France)…

“It’s great that we have qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympics. But that’s just the first step. At the Olympics, we really want to do something really cool,” shared the person who scored 19 points in the final match.

Greece (in the 3rd tournament), Puerto Rico (in the 4th tournament) along with Brazil and Spain (in the first 2 tournaments) are the last teams to win tickets to attend the Paris Olympic basketball.

Thus, Antetokounmpo’s Greece will be in Group A, along with Australia, Spain and Canada. Will Antetokounmpo help the home team advance deep into the playoffs?

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the last time Greek basketball participated in the Olympics, the team competed quite successfully. They ranked 3rd in the group stage after losing to Spain 66-81, winning to Germany 87-64, losing to the US 69-92 and winning to China with a score of 91-77.

In the knockout round, they lost to Argentina with a very slim 2-point difference. The final score of that match was 80-78 in favor of the team from South America.

Argentina then lost to Dream Team 81-101 and won 87-75 against Lithuania to win the precious bronze medal. After the 2008 Olympics, Greece has been continuously absent from then until now.