Basketball, 12 September, 2014

FIBA WORLD CUP – Semi-Final

FRANCE v SERBIA

France and Serbia were not supposed to be in the Semi-Finals of the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup. Both teams had high hopes but were young and struggled in the Group Phase, finishing third and fourth respectively in Group A. Yet, here they are, ready to face off on Friday in Madrid's Palacio de los Deportes with the winners to return to the court on Sunday with a chance to be crowned world champions. Many people will look back to the match-up between the two teams in Granada where France won 74-73 in what some consider a controversial ending. But neither team really wants to think about that game. "You cannot compare this game to that one. Both teams are better. They improved, we improved," said France coach Vincent Collet, whose team picked up their play against Croatia in the Round of 16 and then pulled off one of the biggest upsets in FIBA history in knocking off hosts and title contenders Spain in the Quarter-Finals. Collet's Serbian counterpart, Sasha Djordjevic, who has seen his team improve as well since the group stage to pick up an 18-point win over Greece in the Round of 16 and a 28-point thrashing of Brazil in the Quarters, said: "It will be a completely new game."

Current Eurobasket champions France came to Spain without a ton of key players, most notably Tony Parker, Joakim Noah, Nando De Colo, Ian Mahinmi, Alexis Ajinca, Kevin Seraphin or Ronny Turiaf. In these circumstances the French, led by Diaw and Batum, were not really expected to reach the final stages of the FIBA World Cup but even so they grinded out 3 wins in 5 matches in the group stage.  After that, without an impressive play, they won 69-64 over Croatia in the Round of 16. However, nobody expected what was to come – The French thumped Spain 65-52 - Spain played an awful match, but France deserves credit for taking the chance. Vincent Collet’s team prevailed after out-rebounding the Spaniards, 50-28. Two of Les Bleus' rising stars, Rudy Gobert and Joffrey Lauvergne, dominated the boards. Utah Jazz big man Gobert had 13 rebounds to go with his five points and Lauvergne had 10 to go with his four. Thomas Heurtel, who plays his club basketball in Spain with Laboral Kuxta, had 13 points and four assists for the winners. Spain, who went up against a determined French defense all night, endured an almighty struggle with their shooting. They were two of 22 from behind the arc and 20 of 62 on the evening. France defeated Spain last year in the EuroBasket 2013 Semi-Final on the way to the title and now they have surprised them on their home court in Madrid. Boris Diaw, an NBA champion with the San Antonio Spurs last season, led the French with 15 points and five rebounds.

Serbia had a poor group stage, rather poor results and poor basketball from them, but in the knockout stage they looked like a totally different team, getting blowout wins against two very strong sides like Greece and Brazil. Skill and heart showed by the Serbians, who are looking like arguably the most cohesive and disciplined team in the tournament right now. The most intriguing fact in the match against Brazil was their defense, Serbia was absolutely fantastic and denied Brazil basically any open shots – the highly rated South Americans having to satisfy with contested jumpers… Milos Teodosic led the way for the Europeans with 23 points, 4 assists and 3 rebounds, while Bogdan Bogdanovic with 12 points and 6 rebounds, Bjelica with 8 points and 8 rebounds and the big man pair of Miroslav Raduljica and Nenad Krstic had 10 apiece. 

Probable line-ups

France : Heurtel (8.9Pts, 4.1AS) – Batum (9.9Pts, 3.3Reb) – Gelabale(7.0Pts) – Diaw(7.9Pts, 4.1Reb, 3.9AS) – Lauvergne (9.4Pts, 5.3Reb) 

Serbia : Teodosic (12.6Pts, 4.3AS) – Markovic (4.7Pts, 2.7AS) – Bjelica(11.3Pts, 7.4Reb) – Kalinic(6.5Pts) – Raduljica(13.9Pts, 4.9Reb) 

The two sides will go toe-to-toe with an intriguing back court battle between Heurtel and Serbia’s Milos Teodosic. Whoever wins the point guard battle will likely decide the match, and Heurtel is coming in hot especially after his excellent performance against Spain. Meanwhile, France will need Diaw to get hot early. The San Antonio Spurs forward was handily shut down for the early in their first game against Serbia before scoring four points in the fourth quarter. Having Diaw converting early will help avoid another nail-biting game.

Teodosic will keep the French defense on their toes as he is adept at both driving to the hoop and draining shots from beyond the arc. Meanwhile, Miroslav Raduljica may see some extended playing time after playing only 20 minutes against Brazil. With France preoccupied against Teodosic’s backcourt presence, Raduljica should find himself alone in the paint for some easy conversions. In his biggest game in the tournament, Raduljica terrorized France in the paint for 21 points and seven rebounds in their group stage game. If Serbia wants to enjoy the same success they had in the first matchup, they’ll need to limit Diaw’s production again. Serbia will also need to force France to take outside jumpers. The French are one of the tournament’s worst at converting three pointers, having gone 49 of 155 thus far.

My first thought was Serbia to win this, they look to be more consistent, their defense was amazing two days ago and France`s win over Spain makes the French a little overrated, as Spain played poorly. However, France did play great basketball in the last few matches, defended amazing themselves, so I won`t count them out here. "They showed that they can play without Tony Parker. And that they can really touch the stars.", said the Serbian coach. Probably we will see a low scoring game, I`m sure Serbia will look to keep up the same defensive intensity as in the quarters, both on the perimeter and under the paint, which will make it very hard for France to get open shots. Meanwhile, France is a defensive team by definition and kept opponents under 65 points in the last two games. Collet admitted he's concerned about Serbia's offensive weapons and wondered if his team can create enough offense. "They have more tools than us. We have troubles scoring more than 70 points. They can score 90 points. We don't know if we can good on offense. We know we can be good on defense, but we don’t know if we can be good on offense. We'll see." The stakes could hardly be any higher with a place in the final up for grabs so I expect attacks to be pushed towards 18-22 seconds and a high intensity on the defensive end for both teams. My bets for this game : 

• Raduljica over 11.5 points – 1.85   | ✖

• Teodosic over 4.5 assists – 2.20  | ✖

• Diaw over 3.5 assists – 1.75   | ✓

• Heurtel over 4.5 assists – 2.02   | ✓

• To score most points : Evan Fournier – Stefan Markovic : Fournier – 1.75 (Unibet) | ✖

• Total points(regular time) : 131–140 – 3.40  | ✖

• CRAZY BET : Overtime – 15.00 (Sportingbet)  | ✖