MILAN (Italy) - Greece became on Monday the first team to book their ticket from Milan to Berlin with a 93-77 win over Great Britain,

It was not as easy as the final score suggests for the Greeks, whose superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo was rested and didn't feature in the contest.

Great Britain, whose captain Dan Clark made a record 117^th appearance for his national team, delivered 12 points without reply in the first quarter to take a surprise lead.

Although Greece asserted themselves with a 16-0 run, their winless rivals continued to cling on through some scrappy but effective offense, paced by 17 points from Luke Nelson.

Up 53-52 with 5:55 left in the third, Georgios Papagiannis started and finished a 14-4 Greek surge that finally broke the British resistance, with another 10-2 stint in the fourth adding luster.

Turning Point: Over a spell lasting 4:40 in the third period, Greece outscored their opponents 18-6, allowing GB to convert just 1 of their 5 field goals and out-rebounding their opponents 6-2. 

TCL Player of the Game: Kostas Sloukas was a spark-plug off the bench, notching a game-high 21 points on an efficient 8-for-10 shooting, including 5 thee-pointers, and adding 5 assists. It was the most points by Greek player coming off the bench in a EuroBasket since Sofoklis Schortsianitis against Slovenia in 2009 (23pts).

Stats Don't Lie: Greece scored 26 points off turnovers and 23 on the fast break. GB had just six on each.

Bottom Line: Greece have become the first team in Group C to secure a spot in the Round of 16. Great Britain are not mathematically eliminated but even defeating the pool’s other winless side, Estonia, tomorrow may not keep this flame alive.

They said:

"When Giannis is not in the lineup, everybody has got to give extra - twice the energy, twice the hustle, twice the things he does on the court. Because it's not easy to cover what he does on the court. So you have to out-hustle the previous performances. And I think in the second half, we did great job." - Greece forward Kostas Papanikolaou

“After two big wins, it’s expected to have a little loss of concentration, to be a little bit loose. That’s why we have to work a little but more as coaches. We had to rotate differently.” - Dimitris Itoudis

"We hung around with them for a majority of the game to prove that we can compete with that level of team. But, again, we let ourselves down for a period of the game where they were able to get an advantage. They know how to manage throughout the game. So there's a lot of things to work on from our point of view. But again, there's more positives than there were in the previous two games." - Great Britain forward Dan Clark

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