In Slovenia’s final friendly before EuroBasket begins, they lost to Nikola Jokić and Serbia 106-72 on Thursday. The game was never truly a competition as the stacked Serbian team took care of Slovenia quickly.
Luka Dončić played for 27 minutes and had 17 points, five rebounds and four assists.
Serbia was in control from the jump. After five minutes of play, they were already up by double figures.
It was hard for Luka to make any significant impact for Slovenia, but he found a way. He had some nice skip
passes, attacked the paint and converted on a pair of 3-pointers. At the end of the first quarter, Luka had 11 points, but Slovenia trailed 33-23.
Luka checked out early in the second quarter and returned to the floor after a couple of minutes of rest. Unfortunately, Serbia’s advantage had grown to 15 points by then. Serbia continued to play on and after making an open wing 3-pointer, they were ahead 54-33 with 3:50 left in the second half.
After two quarters, it was Serbia in front 64-36.
Jokić had a relatively quiet first half, but started getting going offensively in the third quarter. Luka, on the other hand, began to slow down offensively. He wasn’t really looking for his shot and with Slovenia down by 30-plus in a game that doesn’t matter, that made sense.
When he did take an attempt, in the third quarter, Luka was often missing. This was another game where he struggled from 3-point range. Luka made two from beyond the arc in the first, but missed his other eight attempts from deep.
With Slovenia trailing 91-56 entering the fourth, there was no reason for Luka to play any longer. He sat the rest of the way as Serbia cruised to victory.
Key Takeaways
This was an ugly game for Slovenia. Still, it’s an exhibition, and Luka had some good moments. Now the real competition begins.
Slovenia will start EuroBasket play, taking on Poland on Aug. 28at 11:30 a.m. PT. Let’s see if Luka help Slovenia make a deep run in this intense competition.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.