By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
MANILA, Philippines – Just hours after the complains of Luka Doncic about the officiating in the game between Slovenia and Canada, coach Jordi Fernandez was asked if he expects a similar situation created by the Serbian national team in the semifinal and indirectly gave an answer about what happened with Slovenia.
“I don’t know what they’re going to do and I don’t care”, said the Spanish coach of the Canadian national team, giving once more full support to Dillon Brooks: ” If they complain, they complain. We have to play our game and we have to keep our composure, so we can control what we can control. I think yesterday we did a great job as a team defensively and especially Dillon put on a defensive clinic and it should be in a FIBA museum at some point”.
And both Brooks and Lu Dort will come in handy against Bogdan Bogdanovic in the upcoming semifinal against Serbia (10.40 CET): “He is a really good shooter, very good basketball player, he can play pick and roll, he can score in different ways. Very active, runs all over the place, so it’s a tough task and like I told you before, I think we have enough guys that can guard him, not just one, multiple of them, so we’ll defend him as a team. The Serbs are a very good team, very well coached, so it’s a good challenge for us again and we’ll be ready”.
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Coach Pesic said that Canada has adapted better than the United States in the FIBA game, a compliment than Fernandez didn’t fully accept: “It’s his opinion and I really appreciate it, but I think Team USA is very good and they have a very, very good coach and a great coaching staff. So I’m just happy with my guys, the way we’re playing our brand on basketball, obviously we have to take advantage of our size, physicality and the way this team is built and then adjusting to the rules, to the style, to the tournament because we don’t have the experience, so I’m very happy the way this team is growing”.
Plus Serbia got one more day of rest as compared to Canada. something that Fernandez admitted may play a role: “It’s a good question, obviously rest is very important for athletes, the reality is that I cannot control that so I can just worry about getting my guys ready. We came here, we prepared, we got a little bit of a sweat and the guys feel great”.
As for the fact that his player in Sacramento Sasha Vezenkov supports his former teammate in Olympiacos and Serbia’s starting center Nikola Milutinov, coach Fernandez used the no-comment approach: “I’m pretty sure that Sasha and Milutinov, they played together and they’re good friends so I respect that. Other than that I have no other comments”.