By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
Slovenia veteran guard Zoran Dragic tipped his hat off to Greece for their performance in the semifinal of the Olympic Qualifying Tournament of Piraeus that resulted to the elimination of his own national team.
“Sooner or later we’d need to face them,” Dragic said. “We wanted to face them in the Final. We had a shot against New Zealand to avoid the semifinal vs. Greece. Today, they showed that they were better. They had better character, everything. Second quarter we came a little closer. We started the third quarter very bad. Today they were better and congratulations.”
It didn’t exactly come as a shocker that the defensive plan for Slovenia revolved around Greece superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo. While the Greek Freak didn’t have any spectacular performance, finishing with 13 points, the strategy backfired.
“We tried to help on Giannis because he’s so dominant in that small area close to the basket,” Dragic explained. “And we are leaving open shots to the players. Of course, these aren’t players who can’t make them. They are playing professional basketball. Today, they were making almost everything.”
Follow all the action of the Olympics qualifiers with Courtside 1891 on DAZN
Dragic and his teammates saw several Greek players becoming threats from afar. Vassilis Toliopoulos hit 4-4 triples against them, Thomas Walkup added 3-8 (all of them at the beginning of the second half), Giannoulis Larentzakis finished with 3-5 and Dinos Mitoglou contributed 2-3 of his own from beyond the arc.
“We tried to figure it out, we tried to find a way to stop them but they were too strong today,” Dragic added.
This wasn’t the first lackluster display for Slovenia in the Olympic Qualifiers. The warning bells were heard loud and clear in the opener when Croatia forced the 2017 EuroBasket champions to a blowout loss.
“Our approach was not the same” Dragic admitted. “We were a little bit down with energy. This can’t happen. It happened against Croatia. They go up by 30 and it’s tough to come back. We were totally opposite to what Slovenia is usually playing. We tried to win over New Zealand with more than 29. We had a chance but, again, we came short.”
Zoran Dragic, the younger brother of Slovenia legend Goran, has been playing non-stop for the national team since his debut with the senior squad in 2011. Including youth competitions, he’s been a team staple from 2005 and onward.
Next summer he’ll be 36 years old and he feels he’ll be up for representing Slovenia once more if they manage to advance to the tournament
For sure I’d love to play for the national team [in the EuroBasket],” Dragic mentioned. “This would probably be my last European championship. We have some young players, they are coming up. I’ve been playing for 14, 15 years on the national team. I’m proud to play for Slovenia. For sure I hope that everything is going to be well. We’ll see.”
Photo: FIBA Basketball