By Aris Barkas / info@eurohoops.net
LILLE, France – Serbia center Nikola Milutinov feels perfectly satisfied with the fact that is Nikola Jokic’s backup on the rotation of the national team. He believes that his and the rest of the guys’ job is to support the Denver Nuggets big man as well as Bogdan Bogdanovic.
“When you have Nikola Jokic in front of you it’s just satisfaction to come off the bench,” Milutinov said after Serbia’s win over Puerto Rico. “It’s my thing to help him with the minutes and playing and he’s the main guy here he’s the main role him and Bogdan. So we have to do all of us others we have to do whatever we can in order to just help them to perform as best as they can.”
Jokic had 15 points, 14 rebounds and nine assists in 23:02 and could’ve had a triple-double but didn’t play at all in the fourth quarter, with Serbia up 79 – 51.
“I don’t think that Nicola really cared about this and I think the coach is also trying to raise the pressure,” Milutinov commented. “You can’t only play everybody to burn somebody so you have to keep everybody fresh because the next game is coming in three days and all of us have to be in the rhythm because really you need all the players in order to get to the next stages.”
Milutinov was overall pleased with the way Serbia reacted after the blowout loss to Team USA in the opener and hopes his team keeps the same rhythm in the next games.
“We really wanted to, first of all, win the game, to show better pictures in the first game, “Milutinov said. “To win one point but after also we wanted, when we see that the game is going well for us, we wanted to also chase the difference because in these Olympic Games you know difference matters so you know we really did a good job today and but we need one more.
Now the goal of Serbia is to keep the same rhythm and alertness for the next matches.
“We really had one good game so you shouldn’t go ‘one bad game before, now a good game’,” Milutinov said. “You just have to stay humble. You never know what’s going to happen in the next game. So we just have to rest as much as we can and be ready to play against South Sudan because they really showed in the preparation and in the first game that they are a quality team. They have size and they play aggressive. They’re really good so it’s not going to be easy. Maybe people don’t know them so much but the basketball world knows how good they are.”
Filip Petrusev: The biggest difference to the game vs. USA
It was all about energy and trusting in Nikola Jokic according to Serbia big man Filip Petrusev, who finished with 15 points and nine rebounds in 16 minutes.
“Energy was there 40 minutes,” Petrusev said. “That was the biggest difference against the United States. We didn’t give our best effort and we didn’t have the same energy. We were moving on defense. We had great energy. The offense takes care of itself and it was a great game for us. Do you feel that the talent is there, so we really often take care of ourselves.”
“We’re not going to score 100 points every game,” Petrusev added. “But it’s our goal, you know, from the good defense to have a transition to score as many easy points as possible. And then if we can’t, then we play through the big guy [Nikola Jokic] and he finds us. But yeah, it’s a good game for us. We already talked about this two days ago, about the big game and the difference.”
“I mean, if they don’t double him, he’s going to score every time. So when they double him, there’s a lot of room to cut, to have open shots and that’s what we do.”
Photo credit: FIBA