Basketball-‘World’s best player’ Doncic destroyed us, says Argentina coach

SAITAMA, Japan, July 26 (Reuters) – The best basketball player in the world, Luka Doncic from Slovenia “destroyed” Argentina with his tactical skills, Argentina head coach Sergio Hernandez said Monday.

The Dallas Mavericks star almost broke the men’s Olympic record in one game with 48 points when the Slovenes defeated Argentina 118-100 on their Olympic debut after taking the lead by up to 30 points.

Rather than expressing anger at the result, Hernandez glowered about Doncic for more than two minutes at a post-game press conference, calling it an honor to be at the same game as the former NBA rookie of the year.

“It’s really hard to analyze a game when one player just dominates everything, as we saw with Luka Doncic tonight,” said Hernandez through an interpreter.

“He quickly figured out what our strategy was … and he just destroyed us. We’re talking about 15 points he made in the first two and a half, three minutes of the game.”

Doncic finished the game at 18 for 29 shots, including six threes, and filled the stats with 11 rebounds, five assists and three blocks.

“He’s the best player in the world, including the NBA. When I have doubts, there are no more,” said Hernandez. “It’s an honor to be in the game with him and still we wanted to win, he’s a great player.”

Doncic could have questioned the 55-point record set by Brazilian Oscar Schmidt in 1988, but agreed to sit out the final minutes of the game with assured victory.

“It doesn’t matter. It was three or four minutes. We won the game back then,” said Doncic. “I don’t care about records. We got a win and that’s what we came here for.”

Slovenia’s head coach Aleksander Sekulic praised Doncic’s team-first mentality.

“I didn’t try to bring him back into the game. To be honest, I didn’t think about his points even though he was amazing,” said Sekulic.

“It shows his character, that he came here to do something for Slovenia, not for himself and he showed this to the whole team and he is a great example of that.”

Reporting by Chris Gallagher, editing by Ed Osmond

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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