By Stathis Trapezanlidis/ info@eurohoops.net
Serbia beat Italy 101-82 in yet another blowout in the German capital. After five consecutive wins, the Serbs are looking good. Really good. They’ve defeated Spain, Germany, and they trounced Iceland and Turkey. And now Italy. The Italians, who haven’t done so bad themselves – losing their opener to Turkey but winning the next three against Iceland, Spain, and Germany – simply couldn’t hold off captain Teodosic and his company (and not just the starters. Serbia got a hefty 39 points off their bench).
Teodosic, by the way, dropped 26 points and dished out 8 assists, plus one rebound to top it all off. Nemanja Bjelica was second best with 19 points, 8 boards, and 4 assists. Miroslav Raduljica put in another solid performance, scoring 14 points, collecting 5 rebounds, and dishing out 3 assists. Bogdan Bogdanovic added another 10, plus 1 rebound and 4 assists.
Serbia’s coach, Aleksandar Djordjevic, commented on his team’s performance, saying, “I think once again we had a serious approach to the game and a great attitude, starting from our defense. It was the team effort that won this game. We used our strengths, starting from our biggest strength which is our defense and continued playing from there, today and in all five games in the group. I congratulate my players, this was not easy at all, it was unbelievably difficult physically.”
For Simone Pianigiani’s team – with team captain Luigi Datome out injured and Marco Belinelli getting some rest – Alessandro Gentile (5 rebounds, 6 assists) was the top scorer with 19, and Andrea Bargnani (2 rebounds, 1 assist) was not far behind with 17. Danilo Gallinari scored 14 points, collected 5 rebounds, and served 2 assists.
After the game Pianigiani congratulated Serbia “for playing five great games and winning such a strong group. We were not able to face Serbia in the right way today because we did not have Gigi (Datome) and Marco (Belinelli) and many players had physical problems. Especially when Serbia started playing so well in the second half we could not keep up mentally, it was not impossible but very difficult.”