Germany finished their EuroBasket 2007 performance with an 80-71 win over Croatia in the 5-6 classification game.

Croatia tried to ride the wave of their good performance last night, and led for almost 30 minutes, but once Germany took over the game went in one direction.

Dirk Nowitzki made sure to leave EuroBasket 2007 with a sweet taste.

After several human performances he once again stepped up finishing the game with 31 points on 59% from the field and 12 rebounds, in addition to four assists.

Marko Banic showed his best game today for Croatia with 16 points and only two missed shots, but that wasn't enough to surrender the Germans who forced 18 turnovers on the Croatian side.

"You always want to go out with a win, with a good feeling, with a dream for everybody," shared Germany's center, Patrick Femerling in what might be his last EuroBasket game.

"We tried to do that and played hard and gave everything we had."

Croatia counted on the Marko's – Banic and Tomas to grant them a 9-2 run in the opening minutes, but Dirk Nowitzki led Germany back to tie the game with a 7-0 run.

The teams were neck-and-neck before Nikola Prkacin carried Croatia on another run, this time 0-9, the shut down the first quarter with his team up 25-16.

Marko Popovic gave Croatia their first double-digit lead of the day early in the second quarter, and an unsportsmanlike foul by Herber halfway through the quarter didn't help Germany.

Going down to the locker rooms Croatia was up 44-36, but that margin sustained for at least seven more minutes until Germany came to life.

Jan-Hendrik Jagla and Nowitzki carried yet another 9-2 run to give Germany their first lead of the night, 58-57, with 1:25 to play in the third quarter.

No points were added until the buzzer, but Germany woke up first scoring the first four points in the last period.

Prkacin made it a one point game, before Germany's back court fired from long range to open a 70-61 lead.

Croatia never managed to test the German lead from that point.

"We reached our goal which was to finish among the top seven teams and make the pre-Olympic tournament," concluded Croatian guard, Roko-Leni Ukic, ""but we have a lot to learn from this tournament."

"We had a lot of highs and lows and did a lot of good things and bad things. We have to improve on that before next year."

Germany goes home with the fifth spot while Croatia is taking the sixth.

Both teams will play in next summer's in the pre-Olympic tournament.

Germany

Coach Dirk Bauermann: "We're just really happy that we beat a really strong Croatia team. After all, they are the only team that beat Spain so far. I'm just happy to win the game and finish fifth."

"After we turned up the defense it was a different game. Our defensive performance and the fact that Dirk (Nowitzki) had an unbelievable game were the two key facts. We're really happy with this win. Obviously everybody comes here with the goal of winning a medal. But this is a big win for German basketball."

"We're going back tomorrow morning and I wanted to thank the Spanish federation and the Spanish people. We felt really welcome and taken care of here."

Center Patrick Femerling: "It was very important after that loss to Spain to come back with two victories. They were two tough games. So being fifth is very important because we still have a chance to go to the Olympics.You always want to go out with a win, with a good feeling, with a dream for everybody. We tried to do that and played hard and gave everything we had."

Center Jan Jagla: "The team really fought today. Everybody wanted to come in fifth. It was really important to win another game and finish this game with a win and not a loss. I think the team came in with the big goal to win a medal. But we also had the small goal to make the pre-Olympic tournament. After the loss to Spain we came together. Overall it's okay that we came in fifth, but the big goal wasn't accomplished."

Croatia

Coach Jasmin Repesa: "The first 20 minutes were pretty good, the second 20 really bad. Don't know if that was we were tired or they played better in the second half. Nowiztki made the difference. But congratulations. They deserve the victory because they played better for 40 minutes."

Center Mario Kasun: "It was really tough for us. We were able to keep Dirk (Nowitzki) down for a while. But in the second half he just went off."

Guard Roko-Leni Ukic: "We reached our goal which was to finish among the top seven teams and make the pre-Olympic tournament. But we have a lot to learn from this tournament. We had a lot of highs and lows and did a lot of good things and bad things. We have to improve on that before next year."

Having both secured a spot in the pre-Olympic qualifying tournament with wins on Saturday, Germany and Croatia will meet Sunday to decide between fifth and sixth place at EuroBasket 2007.

Both teams had struggled to win games prior to their wins on Saturday though Croatia had lost four straight by slim margins while for the Germans it was the second straight time they had bounced back from a hefty defeat, having fallen to hosts Spain by 28 the night before.

“It was a long hard summer and I’m just really happy they were rewarded,” said German coach Dirk Bauermann after the win.

“If you work so hard and go home with nothing, that’s so hard. So this keeps our dream (of going to the Olympics) alive.”

Germany trailed for a large portion of their game with Slovenia while Croatia led their game with France more or less from start to finish.

“It was very hard to forget last night’s game,” said forward Damir Markota, referring to their gut-wrenching loss to Lithuania in the quarter-finals.

“We came here to be in the Olympic qualifications so we wanted to play hard for that.”

With both teams secondary mission accomplished there is little on the line but the pride of finishing fifth instead of sixth.

Last result: Germany beat Slovenia 69-65, Croatia beat France 86-69.

Key Match-up: Nikola Prkacin vs. Dirk Nowitzki.  The key with Germany is always controlling their superstar and this game will be no different. 

X-Factor: Joe Herber.  Herber was proven that he is capable of stepping up in big games as he did against Italy where he scored 18 points.  Since that time though he has turned in just seven total points including a goose egg against Slovenia in which he didn’t even take a shot.

Stats: Croatia improved their three-point shooting in the win over France, hitting eight of 19 (42%).  They had made just fewer than 33% of their three-pointers in the four previous games, all loses.

Sounding off:  “As far as out team goes, I’m proud of them.  When we were down nine there were a lot of concerned faces.  But I knew that if we defence and kept moving that we would have a chance and the guys did that.” –Germany Coach Dirk Bauermann