WARSAW, Poland — Jan-Hendrik Jagla scored 19 points and had 11 rebounds to lead Germany to a 76-73 upset Tuesday of defending champion Russia at the European basketball championship.
Russia, which only has three players from the team that upset Spain to win the title in 2007, fell behind early and trailed by double digits for most of the game, before narrowing the gap to 68-67 on two free throws from forward Nikita Kurbanov with just under two minutes to play.
But Heiko Schaffartzik hit a 3-pointer for Germany on their next possession and the Germans held on for their first win in Group B.
Both teams were without their top NBA stars for the tournament. Germany is missing Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki, and Russia is without Utah Jazz forward Andrei Kirilenko.
In Group C, the young Serbia team looked nothing like the squad that stunned world champion Spain on Monday, falling to Slovenia 80-69.
In other play, traditional power Lithuania lost to host Poland 86-75. Forward Maciej Lampe led five Polish players in double figures with 22 points and 10 boards, while Orlando Magic center Marcin Gortat added 15 points and 17 rebounds.
Also, San Antonio Spurs point guard Tony Parker scored 23 points to lead France past Latvia 60-51 and atop Group B with two wins. In Group A, Greece improved to 2-0 with a 76-68 win over Croatia, and Macedonia slipped past Israel 82-79 behind 19 points and six boards from center Pero Antic to improve to 1-1 at the tournament.
Later Tuesday, world champion Spain looked to rebound from its opening loss to Serbia when it played Britain, and Turkey took on Bulgaria in Group D.