Giannis Antetokounmpo finished off his first weekend with the senior Greek national team in solid form, scoring 8 points (3/7 fg, 2/4 ft) to go with a game-high seven rebounds and two steals in Greece's narrow 68-66 loss to Croatia on Sunday (box score). Antetokounmpo came off the bench and played 20 minutes, hitting three of his first four shots before going scoreless in the second half. A steal and Euro-step led to an early transition bucket, followed by a put-back dunk after setting up a teammate for what should have been a layup. His added a dunk off a nice backdoor cut, taking advantage of Croatia's perimeter overplay. You can check out all the video highlights above.
Kostas Papanikolaou scored 11 to lead Greece, while Sixers' lottery pick Dario Saric led Croatia with 14 points and seven rebounds. More amusingly, former Buck Damir Markota (remember the 06/07 season?) scored 10 on five shots off the bench. Greece is scheduled to play its next exhibition games August 17 and 18 vs. Lithuania and Slovenia, respectively.
In other European action, Zaza Pachulia scored 19 to lead Georgia past the Czech Republic 73-62 on the first day of EuroBasket 2015 qualification. Georgia won't be among the teams competing in the FIBA World Cup starting later this month, but they are among the second-tier teams beginning qualification efforts for next year's European Championships this month. Their next qualifier is on Wednesday in Hungary.