Svetislav Pešić was not completely satisfied with his team’s performance, even though Serbia defeated Greece in the first official test before Mundobasket.
Izvor: Youtube/HellenicBF/Screenshot
Serbia defeated Greece 71:64 in the first official match of the Serbian team in preparation for Mundobasket, and the selector Svetislav Pešić he was satisfied with what he saw after the game. He pointed out that this, as the first official preparatory game, was a very important test for the “eagles”.
“A very important game for us because we have worked a lot until now, and this is our first official game. The boys were very motivated and this was special for us because after training we needed this in this great atmosphere. Both teams played hot-cold, we are not yet ready to control everything on the field”, said Svetislav Pešić in the introduction.
As always, he emphasized the transition as the most important part of the game and the first goal, and he emphasized that what was wrong was the number of turnovers. You shouldn’t panic, but you should certainly work on it.
“What is always important for us is defense in transition. We were excellent in that. This was the first goal for us, the first thing we talked about and trained for. We gave only six points in transition to Greece and that’s great . The players were strong and concentrated. Of course, if you invest yourself physically and mentally in that, you don’t always have good decisions and we had 14 turnovers. It’s not dramatic, but we have to talk about it and see how to control it,” added the selector of Serbia.
“Let the victory go, it doesn’t matter!” Pešić is not interested in the result – We have no control!
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The Serbian team struggled in the first half with the opponent’s jump, and especially the wing centers caught balls under the basket. At halftime, however, Pešić’s team managed to improve in that part of the game as well.
“The second half was better in controlling the defensive rebound. In the first 20 minutes, the Greeks had 10 or 11 offensive rebounds, and in the second half only three offensive rebounds. In the first half, 11, in the second three points from those situations,” Pešić explained.
He said that now it doesn’t matter if Serbia won or not and that some other things are much more important.
“We’re not talking about winning, but about how we played. Some players have played European basketball, FIBA basketball for a long, long time, like Bogdanović. This is the time to practice that, as in the match against Italy and in the other preparatory matches. I think I said everything,” he finished.