MALAGA (Euroleague) - There wasn’t enough room for Nikola Mirotic to play for Spain at last year’s EuroBasket but he may force his way into the national team in time for the Olympics.

He did his chances of a senior-team call-up with Spain no harm on Thursday night by scoring with a game-winning drive at Unicaja Malaga in the Euroleague.

The MVP of the 2011 U20 European Championship after leading Spain to gold in Bilbao, Mirotic's basket gave Madrid an 81-80 victory and a 1-0 record in the Top 16.

At the J.M. Martin Carpena arena in Malaga, Madrid coach Pablo Laso called a timeout with 9.8 seconds remaining to draw up the final play.

Martynas Pocius inbounded the ball to Ante Tomic a couple of meters from the three-point arc and above the top of the key, and the Croatian then handed the ball off to Sergio Rodriguez.

The point guard drove towards the basket but was closely guarded by Hrvoje Peric, so Rodriguez hurled a high pass to Mirotic on the wing.

Mirotic, who made a good play just to retrieve the ball and was closely guarded by Jorge Garbajosa, took one dribble to get past his former Madrid teammate before leaving the floor with his right foot and banking in the winning shot just 0.5 seconds from the end.

Bernie Rodriguez then missed with a desperation shot from half-court for Unicaja.

"I think in the second half, we found our rhythm in the game and in the end, we were lucky to get this last shot," Mirotic said.

The 20-year-old finished with 12 points on six of nine shooting from the floor and also had six rebounds.

"The most important thing is that the team wins and everyone brings something, like we did today," he said.

"The team must continue to grow because we’re able to do many great things in Europe and in Spain."

FIBA