By: Jonash Dannug and Lorenzo del Carmen
Bogdan Bogdanovic and the rest of Serbia unleashed their pent-up frustrations from their loss to Italy on the Dominican Republic, leading to a dominant display that secured their spot in the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 quarter-finals.
Bogdanovic took the lead by scoring 20 points in just 22 minutes on the floor, maintaining a perfect 100 percent shooting record from the field as the Eagles secured a wire-to-wire win over Los Quisqueyanos, with a final score of 112-79.
“I said after that night against Italy that it’s not possible to shoot 1/13 from three again,” remarked the 31-year-old shooting guard, who represents the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA. “I guess my lucky number is 7—seven out of seven, front and back. I’m just joking.”
“I’m just enjoying the victory. I’m proud of the way we responded after that loss. It was tough—mentally tough two days. We were thinking about every mistake — no sleep and couple of drinks to recover, but that’s the tournament.”
Coach Svetislav Pesic and his staff instructed the Eagles to apply immense pressure on Dominicana guards Andres Feliz and Jean Montero. This strategy allowed the Eagles to amass 29 turnover points and 34 fastbreak points, compared to the Dominicans’ 13 and 15, respectively.
Serbia also dominated in the paint, scoring 70 points from the shaded area compared to Los Quisqueyanos’ 32. It was undoubtedly a methodical performance by the European side.
“In the game against Italy, we were up by 16, and then we allowed them some easy points in the fast break, and they closed the gap to only one point before the start of the fourth quarter,” explained Vanja Marinkovic, who contributed 16 points in 17 minutes against Dominicana.
“We knew what we did wrong. We watched videos and prepared ourselves really well for this game so that chance never arrived. Like I said before, we set the tone from the start and never let Dominicana get back in the game from the first minute. That’s it.”
Serbia enters the tournament’s quarter-finals with four wins and one defeat, aiming to extend its campaign and secure its first gold medal in the competition since 2002.
Their next challenge will be a match against Lithuania tomorrow, which upset the United States last night with a score of 110-104 at the SM Mall of Asia Arena. Winning is addictive, and the Eagles are determined to maintain their winning streak.
“Every victory is important for us. We celebrate every victory from the first day we started working together until now,” stated Pesic.
