By Bilal Baran Yardımcı/ info@eurohoops.net
Nikola Kalinic felt right at home in Istanbul. The former Fenerbahce forward playing with the Serbian national team on a court he knows really well, was one of the standouts with 14 points in the win over Turkey.
Plus he made a shot that will be remembered.
Not so many players can make this shot, but Kalinic did and the question is if that can be an omen for Serbia going to the Eurobasket.
As he said to Eurohoops: “We don’t think too much about the Eurobasket, we just play, we try to improve every day. I think after this game we have a lot of things to watch and to improve”.
Kalinic couldn’t but admit that Serbia aims high: “I think we are a solid team. Serbia always tries to fight for the medals. So that’s it. When you arrive in the quarterfinals, the semifinals, those are all good teams. There are four, five, or eight contenders right now. It will be hard, but we are going to be ready and we are going to try and get that medal”.
Speaking about the game and Turkey’s comeback in the second half, Kalinic added: “We lost a little bit of our concentration. We knew that at their home court they would try to give everything and be more aggressive in the third period. We may back down a little bit, but we managed to stay focused in the end, we made our shots and got an important victory for the possible qualification to FIBA World Cup. Now we are back in the mix”.