MANILA – Luka Doncic and Slovenia are headed to the World Cup quarter-finals. So are the US, Germany and Lithuania.
Half of the World Cup quarter-final field is now set, after those four nations won their opening second-round games to secure spots in the knockout round.
And the other half of the quarter-final field will be decided Sunday, after four winner-take-all games.
The US rallied to hold off Montenegro 85-73 in Group J, and Lithuania topped Greece 92-67 in the late game in that group.
The Americans and Lithuania are both 4-0 now; Greece and Montenegro fell to 2-2 and cannot catch the leaders with one game remaining for those teams in Round 2.
The top two teams in each of four, four-team, second-round groups make the quarterfinals.
Slovenia topped Australia 91-80 and Germany ran past Georgia 100-73 in Group K second-round games.
Those outcomes ensured that Slovenia and Germany will finish first and second in that group, in some order, and both are off to the quarter-finals.
Meanwhile, chaos reigns in the other two groups.
In Group I, Puerto Rico and Italy won, Serbia and the Dominican Republic lost.
In Group L, Brazil and Latvia won, defending champion Spain and Canada lost. In both groups, every team is 3-1 – and that means all eight of those teams are facing win-or-go-home games Sunday.
At Manila, Tremont Waters had 37 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds, and Puerto Rico kept its World Cup hopes alive by winning a wild one over the Dominican Republic.
George Conditt scored 18 for Puerto Rico, which led by 16 points, then got down by 11, then came back to win anyway.
Karl-Anthony Towns had 39 points and 10 rebounds for the Dominican Republic. Andres Feliz had 22 points on 7-for-8 shooting.
At Manila, Simone Fontecchio scored 30 points and added seven rebounds, and Marco Spissu had 14 points for Italy (3-1) to put itself in the thick of the race for the quarter-finals.
Italy hit 11 of 21 of its 3-pointers, which proved to be the difference against a poor-shooting Serbia.
The loss was the first in the tournament for Serbia (3-1). Bogdanovic led the losers with 18 points, but hit only 1 of 13 3-point attempts. As a team, Serbia made 7 of 31 from 3-point range. Ognjen Dobric added 15 points for Serbia.
On Sunday, Italy faces Puerto Rico and Serbia has the Dominican Republic. It’s real simple: The winners go to the quarterfinals and the losers are out of the World Cup.
At Okinawa, Luka Doncic scored 19 points, Mike Tobey added 18 points and 12 rebounds and Slovenia advanced. It was a rematch of the bronze-medal game in the Tokyo Olympics, won by Australia.
Klemen Prepelic had 11 points and Gregor Hrovat added 10 for Slovenia (4-0), which never trailed.
Josh Giddey had 25 points for Australia (2-2), and Patty Mills scored 17. Dante Exum added 13.
At Okinawa, Maodo Lo scored 18 points, with 16 from Dennis Schroder and Moritz Wagner adding 14, and Germany (4-0) had balanced scoring with six players in double figures.
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