The Slovenian team beat Croatia by 7 points for a 91-84 win in the closest Group B match of the 2010 World Basketball Championships on Monday.

Nearly 7,000 fans showed up in Istanbul's Abdi Ipekci Arena to watch the Slovenian victory putting the team in third place in its group behind the U.S. and Brazil, who will be playing each other on Monday night.

The game remained very close throughout, with Croatia being ahead the first half of the game, finishing the first two quarters with a 2-point and 5-point leads respectively.

However, Slovenia broke into lead in the third quarter, finishing the quarter 65-59 and maintaining the lead in the final quarter for its victory.

Slovenia's Jaka Lakovic and Uros Slokar both scored the highest for their team with 15 points each, even though Croatia had the highest scorers of the game.

Former Toronto Raptor Roko Ukic scored 20 points and both Marko Popovic and Marko Tomas scored 17.

Neighbors and both former members of Yugoslavia, Slovenia and Croatia had one victory each, but both had lost their matches against the powerful American team earlier in the championships.

This victory put Slovenia at 2-1 on the third day of the tournament.