Finnish him!

Good morning. Let's basketball.

Nikola Jokic is out of EuroBasket in the Round of 16. Finland, running up their best international basketball performance ever, beat Serbia by six on Saturday behind another big game from Lauri Markkanen and a lightning storm down the stretch from Elias Valtonen, who spent a few years at Arizona State in the 2010s. (The Finns love Arizona!)

I strongly recommend FIBA's extended highlight reel if you didn't watch the game. Highly entertaining battle.

Serbia was a favorite to win the title, given that they have the best player in the world and have been a continental and international powerhouse for decades. Things looked shakier once Bogdan Bogdanovic left the tournament due to a serious injury. And it turns out that his absence was really felt in the knockout loss: his replacement Marko Guduric was 1/8 from the floor and missed a key three late when Jokic was wide open.

Finland has never finished higher than No. 6 at EuroBasket. They are now in the final eight.

Jokic will again end a summer without international gold. As I noted before the tournament, he has an Olympic silver (Rio) and bronze (Paris), but has never won a medal at the World Cup or EuroBasket. His next chance is 2027 in Qatar. He's already in conversation within the best dozen basketball players of all-time. This is (to date) a relatively minor blemish, especially since his Serbian team was knocked out of both Olympic tournaments by Team USA. But it's a blemish all the same.