Last night's game between Serbia and the Philippines was very lopsided. The score? 126-67. That's right, it looks like an exhibition game or a practice game by the Serbs to prepare against Italy tomorrow, Wednesday.
Nemanja Bjelica, who missed the game against Angola was perfect, 4/4 2FG, 3/3 3FG and 3/3 FT for 20 points. 7 players reached double figures while dominating the assist department with 37. With 48/64 from the field, 12/22 from downtown and 18/22 from the foul line, they just looked like practicing the whole game after having a deadlock of 11 all during the first quarter.
Moje Srbija forced the Philippines into 14 turnovers, and missed 20 of their 24 3 point shots, which implies that speed doesn't matter if you play hero-ball with Andray Blatche always gets depended with the ball, or CJ Perez, who was on the wrong side of the highlight reel when Vasilije Micić stole the ball from him and made a fabulous pass that lead to a Nikola Milutinov dunk. Most of the highlights by the Serbs were plain heart and teamwork. Nikola Jokić dropped 14/7/7 against an overrated Philippine frontline that can't even play hard on defense after the last tied score, Bogdan Bogdanović was just putting three point fireworks along the way with 17 points, 4/5 are from behind the arc.
Philippines showed why they won't be a better team unless they shift into European basketball. Andray Blatche, the US naturalized import with lots of NBA experience scored 5 points and fouled out in the 4th, missing 6 of 7 3 pointers. Džunmar Fahardo finished with 8 points and 6 rebounds, the best player outside of Blatche. The lowlight of the Philippine defeat was when Paul Lee did a Robert Horry-esque bump on Marko Gudurić in the middle of the 4th quarter, out of frustration, which was obviously dirty.
Bottomline: Srbija's teamwork and heart proved overwhelming to the Philippine hero-ball game.
Srbija will be preparing for Italija tomorrow, srećno orlovi!
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