By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Serbia entered the stage of the Olympic Games in Rio by making short work of Venezuela, winning 86 – 62 in a manner that was quite comfortable, to say the least.
Miroslav Raduljica kept himself busy for his team’s offensive well being in more ways than one, scoring 18 points and dishing 3 assists in 15 minutes, while Bogdan Bogdanovic added 19 points.
After completing the first period with a four-point advantage (18 – 14) the Serbian national team greatly intensified its efforts during the second quarter on both ends of court to completely dominate its opponents.
By forcing Venezuela to make all kinds of errors, be it turnovers or wrong shot selections, coach Djordjevic’s players found ample scoring opportunities on the other end, filling the basket with an almost ludicrous ease.
The product of their “total basketball” was a 28 – 9 partial score in the second period which sent the two teams to the locker rooms with a Serbian lead of 21 points, 44 – 23.
Most of the game afterwards had the form of a… routine procedure . Venezuela couldn’t become competitive enough in order to appear threatening, and the boxscore difference was controlled according the appetites of the “Orlovi”.
Gregory Echenique and Jose Vargas dropped 12 points each for Venezuela.
