Germany’s heart and soul Dennis Schroder expressed his gratitude to his teammates for stepping up after what he referred to as “the worst game” of his career in the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 quarterfinals against Latvia on Wednesday night.
The Toronto Raptors guard had a challenging offensive performance, missing his first 12 attempts in the game before ultimately finishing with nine points on a dismal 4-of-26 shooting from the field. He also contributed four assists and two steals.
Fortunately for Schroder, his teammates rose to the occasion, securing an 81-79 victory over Latvia and earning a spot in the semifinals.
“That’s probably the worst game I ever played in my career, but I mean, we’re still in the semifinals. Shoutout to all these guys in the locker room who helped me win this game, and that’s the reason why we’re all together and we’re a special team,” said Schroder.
“Big shoutout to them. They played hard, shooting a lot of threes, beating a lot of teams in this tournament. Shoutout to them, they’re a really good team,” he added.
Prior to the match against Latvia, Schroder averaged 20.3 points, 6.8 assists, and 4.3 rebounds for Germany, who swept the group phase and the second round for a perfect 5-0 start.
There were a lot of players who stepped up for their captain, including the returning Franz Wagner (16 points, 8 rebounds), his brother Mo (12 points on 3-of-3 shooting), Andreas Obst (13 points), and Johannes Thiemann (1o points, 7 rebounds).
Germany’s big man Johannes Voigtmann later revealed that Schroder had actually apologized to the team after the game for his disappointing performance.
However, Voigtmann believes that it’s not necessary because the 29-year-old floor general has been carrying the team throughout the tournament.
“He obviously had a tough game. His shots wouldn’t fall, but he carried us over the whole tournament, especially with Franz [Wagner] out, he did an outstanding job leading us, scoring for us. He was a great playmaker for us,” said Voigtmann, who got three points and seven rebounds in the gam.
“Him having a tough game, we’re all with him. We have this mentality that we are a team. He thanked us that we kinda saved him today but no, he doesn’t have to thank us because he’s been pulling our car the whole way,” the 6-foot-11 center of Olimpia Milino continued.
“It’s not necessary, he’s been great for us, he’s been a key part of German basketball the last couple of years. He developed, unbelievable development, it’s great.”
