Greece survived a furious late rally by Finland to win 92-89 on Sunday and earn third place in the 2025 Eurobasket in Riga, Latvia.

This was Greece’s first medal in the tournament since 2009, when it also won 3rd place.

The Greeks got over the bad loss to Turkey in the semifinal and played a great defense against one of the best teams in offense in this Eurobasket, and mainly on NBA star Lauri Markkanen.

The players of coach Vassilis Spanoulis led from start to finish, beating The Finns at their game, i.e. in three-pointers, with excellent scoring rates outside the 6.75-meter line.

Tyler Dorsey, Vassilis Toliopoulos and Dinos Mitoglou outdid the Finnish defense with their triples, while captain Kostas Papanikolaou led the defensive effort in the first that contained Finland to just 34 points – with Greece leading 48-34.

In the third quarter Finland tried to come back, slashed their deficit to six (59-53), but Greece recovered and stretched its advantage up to 17 in the final quarter (81-64 and 84-67, the latter with 4:31 to go) before the Finns mounted their ultimately unsuccessful comeback. Finland took advantage of several Greek turnovers and reduced the distance to just one point (90-89) with five seconds left. Giannis Antetokounmpo made a couple of free throws a second later. They proved to be the final points, as Mikael Jantunen’s desperation shot from inside his backcourt missed as time expired.

Antetokounmpo had another great game, scoring 30 points and grabbing 17 rebounds. He also led Greece in assists (6) and blocks (2). Dorsey made 20 and Toliopoulos 15. Lauri Markkanen led Finland with 19 points.

Source: Ekathimerini.com