Germany won the Basketball World Cup for the first time by beating Serbia; which team was missing talisman Nikola Jokic, 83-77 in Manila. Jokic opted to sit the tournament out in order to rest having helped the Denver Nuggets to the NBA crown last season. The tournament most valuable player Dennis Schroder top scored for the Germans with 28 points, while Franz Wagner contributed 19.
There was a difficult start to the match for Serbia, as the team was seeking its first win as an independent nation, when Ognjen Dobric was carried off through injury just three minutes in. At the halfway point the scores were level at 47-47 but the match swung in Germany’s favour in the third quarter as they outscored their opponents 22-10.
However, Serbia kept going and reduced the deficit to just three points in the final minute; but a lay-up by Schroder and a missed three pointer from Aleksa Avramovic gave Germany victory. It is the first title for the Germans since winning the European Championship in 1993.
German team, which won all eight tournament games, became the first team since 2006 to win a FIBA World Cup crown while debuting in the final. Serbia absorbed another heartbreak after losing to the United States 129-92 in the 2014 final, but finished better than their quarter-final exit in 2019.
Canada took third place with a 127-118 win against the United States, which Germany knocked out in the semi-finals earlier in the day. Despite the defeat, the United States finished better than the seventh spot in 2019, the worst-ever major international tournament result. The U.S. team has won the tournament a record five times.
The two tightly-fought games on Sunday closed the 19th edition of FIBA’s flagship event, co-hosted by the Philippines, Indonesia and Japan, on a high note. A record crowd of 38,115 watched the opening game of basketball-obsessed Philippines against the Dominican Republic on Aug. 25 in the world’s largest indoor arena, north of the capital Manila. That beat the previous record of 32,616 who watched the U.S.-Russia final at the 1994 World Cup in Toronto, Canada. Qatar will host the 2027 World Cup.
