It takes more effort for ‘Luka magic’ to work for Slovenia

Slovenia defeated Italy 89-85 in the FIBA Basketball World Cup at Mall of Asia Arena in Manila, the Philippines, on Saturday, finishing in seventh place in the tournament.

Having played nearly 38 minutes in this game, Slovenia’s ace Luka Doncic shot 8-for-15 from the field to drop 29 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists. He made five triples and eight free throws, both out of 10 attempts. Though he also committed nine turnovers, his side wouldn’t have won without his incredible performance.

Doncic had averaged 26.7 points per game before Saturday. He is very likely to become the scoring leader of this year’s World Cup, which speaks a lot about both his excellent individual ability and, unfortunately, how disappointing his teammates were in supporting him since they stopped in the quarterfinals.

Slovenia’s biggest lead in this game was 15 points, and they held it twice, both in the third quarter, when Doncic destroyed every defender that tried to guard him individually. His comprehensive offensive skills place most teams that face him in a dilemma. He is basically unstoppable in one-on-one possessions; if Doncic is double-teamed, he is very good at passing to teammates either for open shots or good opportunities to attack from the weak side.

Italy didn’t double-team Doncic until late in the fourth quarter, and that’s when Slovenia saw their lead being nibbled away. Doncic in Slovenia today faced a similar situation to what Giannis Antetokounmpo confronted in the Milwaukee Bucks during the 2018-19 and the 2019-20 NBA seasons. Both Doncic and Antetokounmpo were unstoppable individually, and their teams seemed sharp on the offensive end, especially from downtown: the Bucks were the league’s top-four 3-point shooting teams during those two campaigns; Slovenia had shot 34.3 triples per game, more than anyone else in the World Cup, before Saturday at 34.6 percent, which wasn’t perfect but good enough.

However, both the Bucks in those years and Slovenia in the World Cup lacked enough offensive variety. The teammates of Doncic today and Antetokounmpo back then often waited outside the 3-point line without much movement. A well-disciplined team or two experienced defenders could make good use of such a rigid offense to contain Doncic and Antetokounmpo as well as their sides.

That’s what happened on Saturday. Slovenia’s offense was very smooth when Doncic’s teammates kept moving without the ball, both outside the 3-point line and cutting toward the rim. Nonetheless, they lacked consistency in doing so. Every time Italy managed to rally, they did it when Slovenia were at a standstill offensively.

In the other game later on Saturday, Latvia beat Lithuania 98-63 to finish in fifth place at the World Cup.