In the final of the Efes World Cup tournament in Turkey, Croatia beat FYROM to win the tournament.
Croatia started the game fashionably and with Kasun and Ukic in good mood they took a quick 9-0 lead. Then came Kus' basket to increase the lead to 18-3. FYROM came back led by Stefanov and Massey, making the score 22-9 at first and then cutting the difference even more, 23-16.
Planinic and Washington, each for his nation, took over the score in the second quarter and the score became 33-23. Croatia finished the second quarter strongly based on their front court superiority, leading the game 44-33.
In the second half Samardgiski helped his nation in the scoring area and brought the difference down to 8, 48-40. But then came Popovic of Croatia to re-establish a double digit difference for Croatia before the end of the third quarter, 68-57.
FYROM made their ultimate counter attack in the start of the last quarter and managed to make the score 68-62. But Croatia's experienced players such as Vujcic and Ukic came back strong and, again, took the difference to double digit levels, 78-67. Massey was fighting alone (29 points) and managed to make the score 86-80, 43 second before the end, but that was it for FYROM. Final score was 90-83 for Croatia who won the Efes World Cup.
In the other game of the day Germany beat Latvia 89-72.
