Kelly Olynyk and Team Canada defeats a very game Slovenia squad led by Luka Doncic

Kelly Olynyk and Team Canada are one win away from the FIBA World Cup Finals

Team Canada and Kelly Olynyk were able to outlast Luka Doncic and the Slovenian national team on Wednesday. The Canadians won the game 100-89 to advance to the semi-final round of the FIBA World Cup, where they’ll face Team Serbia for a shot at the finals.

Since the start of the tournament, the two teams everyone wanted to see square off were Team Canada and Team USA, as they were arguably the two toughest teams heading into the tournament. The Slovenian team led by Doncic was seen as a hard out for anyone trying to make the finals.

And sure enough, that’s exactly what we got. The Slovenian team was down just 93-77 when Doncic was disqualified from the game. He was ejected after earning his second technical foul of the game with 6:37 left to go in the game.

Had Doncic not been ejected, who knows how the final minutes play out? That’s not something to put too much thought into, however, as the Canadians advanced, and now they’ll play the Serbians in the semi-finals, while their North American rivals, Team USA, have to play Germany. Germany is arguably the best team in the tournament outside of North America, and the Americans are not in for an easy game.

As for the Utah Jazz’s Olynyk, he again proved his value through versatility. He only went 2-7 from the floor (1/5 from three), but he also had five rebounds and four assists. He was also a huge asset on defense, helping the Canadians have a BPM of +27 when Olynyk was on the court. Only the Knicks’ R.J. Barrett (+18) had anything close to his countryman, Olynyk.

The Canadians are set to take on Serbia on Friday night, with the winner of that game going on to the Finals to face the winner of USA vs. Germany. The loser of the Serbia and Canada matchup will face the loser of the USA and Germany matchup to determine 3rd place.