Giannis rests as Greece reach the EuroBasket knockout stage

MILAN: Giannis Antetokounmpo got the day off. Greece rolled into the knockout stage of the EuroBasket tournament without him.

Kosta Sloukas scored 21 points, Georgios Papagiannis added 17 and Greece pulled away in the second half to top Great Britain 93-77 in a Group C matchup on Monday.

Antetokounmpo is expected to play in at least one of Greece’s final two group-stage games, the first coming Tuesday against Ukraine. The knockout round in Berlin starts on Saturday.

“He’s available and he will play tomorrow,” Greece coach Dimitris Itoudis said after Monday’s game. “He had a discomfort a little bit on his knee, nothing major. ... We did not want to risk anything so we decided not to dress him up today.”

Kostas Papanikolaou and Michail Lountzis each had 10 points for Greece, which is now assured of a top-four place in the group. There are four groups with six teams in each at EuroBasket, with the top four finishers in each group headed to the knockout stage.

Luke Nelson had 17 points for Great Britain (0-3), while Myles Hesson scored 13, Ovie Soko added 12 and Dan Clark finished with 11.

Greece used a 16-0 run to erase an early seven-point deficit. Great Britain closed within 53-52 in the third quarter, but Greece scored 40 of the game’s final 65 points.

GROUP C

UKRAINE 84 ITALY 73

Also at Milan, Ukraine are going on to Berlin for the knockout round.

Svi Mykhailiuk scored 25 points, Ivan Tkachenko and Issuf Sanon each scored 17 and Ukraine (3-0) remained perfect by topping Italy.

Achille Polonara led Italy (1-2) with 17 points. Simone Fontecchio scored 14 points and Marco Spissu added 11.

CROATIA 73 ESTONIA 70

Karlo Matkovic scored 17 points on 8-for-8 shooting, Dario Saric added 15 points and 12 rebounds and