Dennis Schroder scored 28 points, Franz Wagner added 19 and Germany capped off an unbeaten run through the World Cup by holding off Serbia 83-77 in the final on Sunday night. It is Germany's first World Cup title; before now, its top showing in the event was a bronze at Indianapolis in 2002.

Germany went 8-0 in the tournament, becoming the fifth consecutive champion to go unbeaten.

Aleksa Avramovic scored 21 and Bogdan Bogdanovic added 17 for Serbia (6-2), which lost the title game for the second time in the last three tournaments. It was routed by the U.S. 129-92 in the 2014 gold-medal game, and little was expected of the team this summer — merely because its best player, Nikola Jokic of the NBA champion Denver Nuggets, decided not to play and instead opted to rest for the coming season.

But Serbia went on a surprise run, fueled by the inspiration the team took from the loss of reserve forward Borisa Simanic. He was fouled late in a first-round win against South Sudan, needed surgery that night for internal injuries, and then a second surgery was required to remove one of his kidneys.

Simanic will get a medal. But it'll be silver after Germany simply proved too tough.

A 22-10 run in the third quarter gave Germany all the breathing room it needed after a back-and-forth opening half, and Serbia couldn't reclaim the lead down the stretch. It got within 79-77 after Marko Guduric made a pair of free throws with 39.5 seconds left, but Schroder blew past two defenders for a lay-up on the ensuing German possession to restore a four-point edge.

The notion of Germany being the world's best in basketball was farfetched even when Nowitzki was the country's best player.

No more. Germany came up with a plan to ask its best players for a three-year commitment to the national team, with eyes on this World Cup and the Paris Olympics.

This was the second year of that plan, and a team that didn't even get out of the opening round at any of the last three World Cups — finishing 17th in 2010, not qualifying in 2014, and finishing 18th in 2019 — now has the Naismith Trophy in its possession for the next four years.