What a show by Luka Doncic: The national basketball team simply can't find a way to counter Slovenia's outstanding playmaker. A barbaric "Luka Magic" shines in their first EM bankruptcy - but the DBB selection can benefit from it.
"What happened?" asks the journalist crowd Maodo Lo after the narrow bankruptcy against Slovenia. Slightly acidified, the builder replies: "Luka Doncic happened." When the German national basketball team lost 80:88, the first at the EuroBasket, Lo and Co. found no way to stop Doncic. The magician who ruthlessly and almost barbarically plows through the German defenses and leaves only mischief in his opponents' wake. The prancing magician who amazes the crowds. The superstar, against whose team the bankruptcy for the DBB selection may come at just the right time.
Before the tournament, nobody expected these signs: Germany fights, shows and wins through the "killer group" (Lo) of the EuroBasket. It is the best German EM start in history. But the engine of Slovenia, the reigning European champion with world star Luka Doncic, stutters. Just before the game against the DBB selection, the third of the Olympic Games in Tokyo stumbled against Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is the first EM bankruptcy of the Slovenians in seven years.
This makes the already most eagerly awaited duel in Hammer Group B, in which Germany was considered an outsider behind Slovenia, France and Lithuania, even more exciting. Almost 20,000 fans make the pilgrimage to the arena in Cologne, hours before tip-off there is a folk festival atmosphere. Some jerseys with Wagner and many with Nowitzki on the back can be seen. But most jerseys are decorated with the number 77 and the name Doncic. In the hall, thousands of Slovenes celebrate their hero in several fan blocks with frenetic singing and wild jumps.
Slovenia needs a win against Germany if they don't want to go into the knockout phase in fourth place. And the European champion appears so motivated right from the start, especially in the person of their megastar. Doncic recorded 36 points, ten rebounds, four assists (with five turnovers) in just under 34 minutes of play. But the bare numbers do not reflect how the 23-year-old determines and directs the game almost at will. How, as soon as the German team cuts short, he barbarically intervenes again and shows who is the master of the house. How he makes magic throws look easy.
The DBB selection actually does not want to lose the momentum from the previous three games with three wins and move unbeaten and above all first into the round of 16 in order to catch a supposedly easier opponent from group A. In order to perhaps really be able to win the first medal in 17 years (EM silver in 2005). But on Tuesday evening, the creativity and lightness of the previous games was missing offensively for almost the entire game. Even if the intensity is right and the team fights back to the leading Slovenians several times, they can't find their rhythm. Attacks against the unbelievably fast and deeply sinking defensive end too often in long-distance throws that don't want to be made that evening.
Only twelve of 37 three-point attempts sit. The team of national coach Gordon Herbert is lucky that Slovenia scores even worse from outside, otherwise the bankruptcy might have mutated into a debacle. Franz Wagner, the hero of the Lithuania thriller, remains pale this time and has no points on his account at halftime. Captain Dennis Schröder tries to keep control of the German game and to establish the balanced offensive of the previous games. But his throws (Schröder only hits three out of ten threes) and those of his teammates are too transparent, imprecise and sometimes unlucky.
Above all defensively, Germany is overwhelmed. And that is, loosely based on Maodo Lo, because Luka Doncic happens again and again. The 23-year-old is called "Luka Magic" by fans and media in the USA in reference to Lakers legend Earvin "Magic" Johnson. A magician, a magician on the ball. In Slovenia, the basketball player, who was already extremely successful as a teenager, is a national hero, and in the NBA, the best basketball league in the world, he is one of the absolute figureheads. Dirk Nowitzki's "successor" at the Dallas Mavericks is also a showman. The Americans call it must-see TV. "He's someone you would pay to see," acknowledged national coach Herbert before the game. "He's one of the best players in the world."
What Doncic does with the ball, how it can hardly be defended, what it triggers in opponents and fans is exciting to watch. Only a small selection follows. In the second quarter, the playmaker comes off the bench, pulls his first action against two opponents to the basket, twists his body, is fouled in the jump and still puts in a crazy layup backwards. Freezing. Barbaric. Fans turn to each other in disbelief, Slovenians shout MVP calls. It doesn't matter who is supposed to stop the magician that evening (from Schröder to Nils Giffey to Nick Weiler-Babb), they all have no chance against the 201 centimeters and 104 kilograms, coupled with flexible changes in speed and a gifted overview.
Because Doncic moves to the basket, he likes to fire a laser-like pass to the teammate as well as to complete it himself. The assist to the 38-28 is a football quarterback-style full-court pass that few execute with such precision. Then - bang, again without regrets - he hits one of his dreaded step-back threes over Daniel Theis' outstretched arm. In the second half, the magician sunk an extremely difficult fade-away throw from the turn directly in front of national coach Herbert, despite a tight defense. He has to smile out of sheer recognition while the ball only minimally kisses the net. What an action! The hall is ecstatic again. The fans love their magician for these moments - just as his opponents fear him for the almost barbaric act of humiliation.
Leap into the fourth quarter: Doncic continues to impose his very own game on the German defenders. The NBA star shakes his head after a layup, in which the Germans again run into nothing and bounce off him like flies. His sign: "You can't guard me." You can't defend me. Luka Doncic chants fill the round. He has an answer to every good action from Germany that evening. When two threes from Lo and Andreas Obst brought the DBB team back 77-82 in the last two minutes, the Slovenian, who is not exactly known for his defensive skills, even executed a chase-down block against the board à la LeBron James. The photographers' cameras are running hot, showman Doncic flexes his muscles for them.
The final whistle follows. In addition to Doncic, captain and veteran Goran Dragic (18 points) is particularly convincing, whose fast game is also difficult for Germany to get a grip on. The DBB selection must now show that they are drawing the right lessons from this bankruptcy. Then she may even have been helpful at this point in the tournament, when it's about to be against teams like Greece or Serbia with their NBA top stars Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokic.
The calm coach Herbert is quite capable of taking this step. And the German fans, who make a lot of noise throughout the game, seem ready to carry the team well into the knockout phase in Berlin. With a triumph in the evening against Hungary (8.30 p.m.), the team can still win the group. As a reminder: At the last home European Championship in 1993, the sensational title jumped out, the only big one for German basketball.
To do that, the team needs to be better prepared for their next encounter with a true NBA superstar. This talented generation can achieve great things with a more creative and variable offensive, with even more collective effort, with even more united defensive work. Unless the magician "Luka Magic" is in the way. At the press conference, he then made it clear that Maodo Lo was not quite right with his analysis. "Luka Doncic didn't happen," Doncic no longer barbarically puts his team in the foreground. "Slovenia happened."
