By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
Turkey coach Ergin Ataman criticized the referees of the 2023 World Cup Qualifiers game of his national team against Serbia and particularly their decisions during the decisive fourth period.
“We came to a point where we will win the match but especially after the game was tied, the referee’s whistle came into play,” Ataman said. Turkey came back from down 21 points to tie the score at 71 in the fourth quarter before losing 72 – 79. “There was such a great disrespect against the Turkish national team in front of 16,000 fans. Of course, we’ll look at our own mistakes, we also made serious mistakes. But I hope the FIBA Central Officiating Committee will thoroughly examine the last quarter of this game. There was a Serbian bench who always objected to everything in the last quarter, against a ridiculous technical foul that was called on our bench in the first half.”
It was a tough result for the Turkish national team that dropped to 2-4 and the fifth spot in Group I after back-to-back defeats in August’s Window of the World Cup Qualifiers. Nikola Jokic made a lot of damage to the Turkish side in the first half and was the main man responsible for Serbia building a 21-point advantage.
“In the first part, we didn’t start well, especially in defense. We had a big problem in stopping Jokic. Offensively, of course, it wasn’t easy to score in every possession and also our morale went down and we didn’t find a good way to attack. In the second half, we changed strategy. We played with two bigs – Sertac Sanli and Alperen Sengun – together and we started playing aggressive defense on Jokic. We started to trap him and became aggressive against their point guards.”