The Los Angeles team is trying as hard as possible, but victories are very hard. The first playoff series turned out to be a real test for the team, as they had to play seven matches in order to advance further. The star duo of Paul George and Leonardo Kawai showed decent basketball, but Luka Doncic overshadowed the Clippers’ leaders with his performance. However, this is where Dallas ended their performance. “Sailboats” showed character, but went to “Utah”, which did no good. In the first meeting the club still tried to impose a struggle, but it did not manage to beat the opponent (109-112) and in the last fight the story repeated itself (111-117).
The Croatian national team, unlike its today’s rival, had to fight for a ticket to the European Championship. In the group “checkers” were together with Wales, Slovakia, Hungary and Azerbaijan. Almost until the last round the fate of the first line remained unknown, but in the end Zlatko Dalich’s team guaranteed it, being ahead of Wales by only three points. In the League of Nations Croatia performed simply ugly. The group was very strong. Except the Croats, France, Portugal and Sweden fought for a ticket to the playoffs. As a result, all achievements of the Croats in this tournament were limited to three points. Thanks to a 2:1 victory over Sweden, they managed to bypass it and stay in League “A”, but at the same time the Croatians were 10 points behind the second Portugal. The start of qualification for the World Cup was overshadowed by an unexpected 0:1 defeat from Slovenia. However, Croatia beat Cyprus (1:0) and Malta (3:0) in the next two rounds, having managed with six points to reach the first line in their group, where Russia and Slovakia will also fight for tickets to the World Cup. In friendly matches before the start of Euro 2020, Croatia was not impressed, having a 0:1 defeat from Belgium and a 1:1 draw with Armenia at home.
