Luka Doncic’s path to the Paris Olympics just got a lot more complicated. In order for the Slovenian national team to advance to the semifinals of the Olympic Qualifying tournament in Piraeus, Greece — and thus keep their Olympic hopes alive — they must defeat New Zealand on Thursday by double digits, as a result of New Zealand’s 90-86 victory against Croatia on Wednesday.
There are six teams in the tournament, split into two groups of three, and, in group play, each team plays the other two teams in its group. Two top teams in each group advance to the semifinals on Saturday. If all three teams in a group are tied, however, they will be ranked in order of point differential. Slovenia opened the tournament with a 108-92 loss against Croatia on Tuesday, which meant that in order for it to have a relatively simple path to the semifinals (i.e. beat New Zealand and advance), it needed Croatia to beat New Zealand on Wednesday. (Despite losing to New Zealand, Croatia’s spot in the semi-finals is secure because of its +12 point differential.)
Doncic and Slovenia could beat New Zealand by as many as nine points on Thursday and still be eliminated from Olympic contention. If they win by exactly nine, then they’d have a point differential of -7 in group play and New Zealand would have a point differential of -5.
This is a precarious situation for Slovenia. For New Zealand, though, it is an incredible opportunity. On Tuesday against Croatia, they were down by seven points with three minutes left, then finished the game on an 11-0 run. Corey Webster finished with 21 points on 8-for-14 shooting, including a clutch 3-pointer, helping them overcome a monster performance from Croatia’s Ivica Zubac, who finished with 29 points on 12-for-15 shooting and 16 rebounds in the loss.
Slovenia will face New Zealand at 10:30 a.m. ET on Thursday.
