{"id":485865,"date":"2026-02-27T22:52:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T21:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=485865"},"modified":"2026-02-27T22:52:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T21:52:18","slug":"saric-leads-the-charge-as-croatia-slam-the-door-late-vs-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/saric-leads-the-charge-as-croatia-slam-the-door-late-vs-germany\/","title":{"rendered":"Saric leads the charge as Croatia slam the door late vs Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"1806\" data-end=\"2188\">Croatia edged Germany 93-88 in Group E of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2027 European Qualifiers: top scorers <strong data-start=\"1963\" data-end=\"1981\">Dario Saric 23<\/strong> and <strong data-start=\"1986\" data-end=\"2005\">David Kramer 22<\/strong>, with <strong data-start=\"2012\" data-end=\"2032\">Mario Hezonja 21<\/strong> adding support. The game featured 17 lead changes, Germany led for nearly 18 minutes, but Croatia\u2019s execution in the biggest possessions proved decisive.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2190\" data-end=\"2525\">The turning point came late in the fourth: with 5:22 left, <strong data-start=\"2249\" data-end=\"2263\">Jack Kayil<\/strong> hit a three to put Germany ahead 84-83, but Croatia answered immediately. <strong data-start=\"2338\" data-end=\"2354\">Jaleen Smith<\/strong> and Hezonja fueled an <strong data-start=\"2377\" data-end=\"2384\">8-0<\/strong> burst over the next three minutes, pushing it to 91-84 with 1:35 remaining, as Croatia went a perfect 4-for-4 at the line in that stretch.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2527\" data-end=\"2868\">In crunch time (4:20), Croatia shut Germany out <strong data-start=\"2575\" data-end=\"2583\">10-0<\/strong>, sealing it with defensive stops and <strong data-start=\"2621\" data-end=\"2631\">6-of-6<\/strong> free throws. Saric went 8-for-12 with 3-of-5 from deep (index 26), Smith finished with 15 points and 6 assists with just one turnover, and bench spark <strong data-start=\"2783\" data-end=\"2798\">Roko Badzim<\/strong> poured in 11 points in 2:32 during a pivotal third-quarter stretch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Zagreb thriller swings all night with 17 lead changes and both teams up by seven<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":485864,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[225,243,383],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-485865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-croatia","category-germany","category-world-cup"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2026\/02\/Dario-Saric.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485865"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=485865"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=485865"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=485865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}