Finland stuns Serbia and Nikola Jokic to reach quarterfinals at EuroBasket

RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Elias Valtonen scored eight points in the final two minutes to help Finland stun Serbia and Nikola Jokic 92-86 Saturday in the round of 16 at the EuroBasket tournament.

Jokic finished with a game-high 33 points but it was Finland that came up with the big shots late to spring the biggest upset of the tournament so far.

Serbia scored six unanswered points to take a 77-75 lead in the fourth quarter, but Valtonen's 3-pointer with two minutes left put the Finns up 82-78. He then added a tip-in and another trey to help Finland pull away.

Jokic's 3-pointer from way out with 16 seconds left pulled Serbia within five, but Finland easily saw out the win.

“They played a great game. From the start we didn’t come ready," said Jokic, whose team trailed 11-1 early. “I just wasn’t ready from the jump.”

It was Finland's first win over Serbia since 2009. The Serbs came into the tournament as one of the favorites, but exits in the round of 16 for the second straight time.

Finland finished with 20 offensive rebounds, which Jokic called “just unacceptable.”

"We knew what they were doing, we prepared well, we watched film, still they managed to just better and more physical than us,” the Denver Nuggets star said.

Lauri Markkanen led Finland with 29 points and Valtonen finished with 13. In the quarterfinals, Finland will face either Olympic silver medalist France or Georgia, who play on Sunday.

Earlier Saturday, Turkey, Germany and Lithuania also advanced.

NBA All-Star Alperen Sengun scored 24 points as Turkey held off Sweden to win 85-79. World Cup winner Germany struggled early against Portugal before pulling away for an 85-58 victory while Lithuania withstood a late comeback attempt to beat tournament co-host Latvia 88-79 in Riga. Arnas Velicka led three-time champion Lithuania with 21 points and 12 assists.

Sengun, a forward with the Houston Rockets, added 16 rebounds and six assists in a stellar performance against Sweden, which drew level at 76-76 thanks to Ludvig Hakanson's 3-pointer with just under three minutes left.

Hakanson led the Swedes with 16 points, while Panathinaikos forward Cedi Osman chipped in with 17 points for Turkey.

Portugal led 32-31 at halftime and only trailed by one point after three quarters before Germany limited them to just seven points the rest of the way.

The Germans struggled to deal with Boston Celtics center Neemias Queta, who had 18 points and 11 rebounds.

Germany captain Dennis Schröder, who faced racial abuse during a game against Lithuania a week ago, and Franz Wagner both scored 16 points despite shooting a combined 0 for 11 from 3-point range. In the first half, Germany made only 1 of 18 attempts from beyond the arc.

A moment's silence was held before tipoff in memory of the victims of the Lisbon streetcar accident in Portugal.

Turkey will play either Poland or Bosnia-Herzegovina for a spot in the semifinals, while Germany will take on either Italy or Slovenia, which boasts the in-form Luka Dončić, and Lithuania faces Greece or Israel.

The remaining last-16 matches are on Sunday.

Defending champion Spain was eliminated Thursday in the group stage by Giannis Antetokounmpo's Greece.

The quarterfinals begin Tuesday.

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Serbia's Nikola Jokic drives between Finland's Sasu Salin, left, and Finland's Mikael Jantunen during the Eurobasket, European Basketball Championship round of 16 match between Serbia and Finland at the Riga Arena in Riga, Latvia, Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Finland players celebrate their victory after the Eurobasket, European Basketball Championship round of 16 match between Serbia and Finland at the Riga Arena in Riga, Latvia, Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Lithuania's Arnas Velicka, left, tries to shoot while defended by Latvia's Rolands Smits during the Eurobasket, European Basketball Championship round of 16 match between Lithuania and Latvia at the Riga Arena in Riga, Latvia, Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Portugal's Neemias Queta, left, tries to shoot while defended by Germany's Tristan Da Silva during the Eurobasket, European Basketball Championship round of 16 match between Germany and Portugal at the Riga Arena in Riga, Latvia, Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Germany's Dennis Schroder and Portugal's Diogo Gameiro in action during the Eurobasket, European Basketball Championship round of 16 match between Germany and Portugal at the Riga Arena in Riga, Latvia, Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Portugal's Travante Williams, centre, in action against Germany's Franz Wagner during the Eurobasket, European Basketball Championship round of 16 match between Germany and Portugal at the Riga Arena in Riga, Latvia, Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Turkey's Alperen Sengun drives between Sweden's Viktor Gaddefors, left, and Sweden's Ludvig Hakanson during the Eurobasket, European Basketball Championship round of 16 match between Turkey and Sweden at the Riga Arena in Riga, Latvia, Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Sweden's Denzel Andersson, bottom, falls after colliding with Turkey's Alperen Sengun, centre, during the Eurobasket, European Basketball Championship round of 16 match between Turkey and Sweden at the Riga Arena in Riga, Latvia, Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Federal immigration agents deployed to Minneapolis have used aggressive crowd-control tactics that have become a dominant concern in the aftermath of the deadly shooting of a woman in her car last week.

They have pointed rifles at demonstrators and deployed chemical irritants early in confrontations. They have broken vehicle windows and pulled occupants from cars. They have scuffled with protesters and shoved them to the ground.

The government says the actions are necessary to protect officers from violent attacks. The encounters in turn have riled up protesters even more, especially as videos of the incidents are shared widely on social media.

What is unfolding in Minneapolis reflects a broader shift in how the federal government is asserting its authority during protests, relying on immigration agents and investigators to perform crowd-management roles traditionally handled by local police who often have more training in public order tactics and de-escalating large crowds.

Experts warn the approach runs counter to de-escalation standards and risks turning volatile demonstrations into deadly encounters.

The confrontations come amid a major immigration enforcement surge ordered by the Trump administration in early December, which sent more than 2,000 officers from across the Department of Homeland Security into the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Many of the officers involved are typically tasked with arrests, deportations and criminal investigations, not managing volatile public demonstrations.

Tensions escalated after the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman killed by an immigration agent last week, an incident federal officials have defended as self-defense after they say Good weaponized her vehicle.

The killing has intensified protests and scrutiny of the federal response.

On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota asked a federal judge to intervene, filing a lawsuit on behalf of six residents seeking an emergency injunction to limit how federal agents operate during protests, including restrictions on the use of chemical agents, the pointing of firearms at non-threatening individuals and interference with lawful video recording.

“There’s so much about what’s happening now that is not a traditional approach to immigration apprehensions,” said former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Saldaña.

Saldaña, who left the post at the beginning of 2017 as President Donald Trump's first term began, said she can't speak to how the agency currently trains its officers. When she was director, she said officers received training on how to interact with people who might be observing an apprehension or filming officers, but agents rarely had to deal with crowds or protests.

“This is different. You would hope that the agency would be responsive given the evolution of what’s happening — brought on, mind you, by the aggressive approach that has been taken coming from the top,” she said.

Ian Adams, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of South Carolina, said the majority of crowd-management or protest training in policing happens at the local level — usually at larger police departments that have public order units.

“It’s highly unlikely that your typical ICE agent has a great deal of experience with public order tactics or control,” Adams said.

DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a written statement that ICE officer candidates receive extensive training over eight weeks in courses that include conflict management and de-escalation. She said many of the candidates are military veterans and about 85% have previous law enforcement experience.

“All ICE candidates are subject to months of rigorous training and selection at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, where they are trained in everything from de-escalation tactics to firearms to driving training. Homeland Security Investigations candidates receive more than 100 days of specialized training," she said.

Ed Maguire, a criminology professor at Arizona State University, has written extensively about crowd-management and protest- related law enforcement training. He said while he hasn't seen the current training curriculum for ICE officers, he has reviewed recent training materials for federal officers and called it “horrifying.”

Maguire said what he's seeing in Minneapolis feels like a perfect storm for bad consequences.

“You can't even say this doesn't meet best practices. That's too high a bar. These don't seem to meet generally accepted practices,” he said.

“We’re seeing routinely substandard law enforcement practices that would just never be accepted at the local level,” he added. “Then there seems to be just an absence of standard accountability practices.”

Adams noted that police department practices have "evolved to understand that the sort of 1950s and 1960s instinct to meet every protest with force, has blowback effects that actually make the disorder worse.”

He said police departments now try to open communication with organizers, set boundaries and sometimes even show deference within reason. There's an understanding that inside of a crowd, using unnecessary force can have a domino effect that might cause escalation from protesters and from officers.

Despite training for officers responding to civil unrest dramatically shifting over the last four decades, there is no nationwide standard of best practices. For example, some departments bar officers from spraying pepper spray directly into the face of people exercising Constitutional speech. Others bar the use of tear gas or other chemical agents in residential neighborhoods.

Regardless of the specifics, experts recommend that departments have written policies they review regularly.

“Organizations and agencies aren’t always familiar with what their own policies are,” said Humberto Cardounel, senior director of training and technical assistance at the National Policing Institute.

“They go through it once in basic training then expect (officers) to know how to comport themselves two years later, five years later," he said. "We encourage them to understand and know their training, but also to simulate their training.”

Adams said part of the reason local officers are the best option for performing public order tasks is they have a compact with the community.

“I think at the heart of this is the challenge of calling what ICE is doing even policing,” he said.

"Police agencies have a relationship with their community that extends before and after any incidents. Officers know we will be here no matter what happens, and the community knows regardless of what happens today, these officers will be here tomorrow.”

Saldaña noted that both sides have increased their aggression.

“You cannot put yourself in front of an armed officer, you cannot put your hands on them certainly. That is impeding law enforcement actions,” she said.

“At this point, I’m getting concerned on both sides — the aggression from law enforcement and the increasingly aggressive behavior from protesters.”

Law enforcement officers at the scene of a reported shooting Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

Federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

People cover tear gas deployed by federal immigration officers outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

A man is pushed to the ground as federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A woman covers her face from tear gas as federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)