BERLIN (EuroBasket 2015) - Nemanja Bjelica makes playing great basketball look effortless, but once he steps off the court he is faced with the only task he finds daunting inside the confines of a basketball arena - talking about himself.

On Saturday in Berlin, moments after dropping 24 points, grabbing 10 rebounds and dishing 4 assists to lead Serbia to an 80-70 win over Spain in their EuroBasket 2015 Group B opener on Saturday, Bjelica got swarmed by a huge group of reporters.

"I said before the championship that we have to play every game as if it were the Final," the new Minnesota Timberwolves forward said.

"The game was emotional because Spain have been great rivals for years.

"But we must forget about it as soon as possible, because if we do not win tomorrow, it will not mean much."

Interestingly, Serbia coach Sasha Djordjevic repeated this last phrase, word for word, moments later at the press conference.

I think Bjelica played one of his best games, if not his best game, in the national team jersey. - Djordjevic

But, unlike the selfless Bjelica, Djordjevic was keen to comment on the fantastic play of Serbia's leader on Saturday.

"Today, he was lethal. He was aggressive, explosive and it's been quite a while since the last time I saw him so explosive.

"I am very proud of that, because we have talked a lot to try to place more importance on him offensively, but he is also giving us a lot defensively."

Bjelica also took over when Spain rallied and threatened to steal it late in the fourth and hit two big threes in the final three minutes to make sure Serbia would preserve their lead.

Bjelica is a professor of big-time shots. - Raduljica

His team-mate, Miroslav Raduljica, was not surprised.

"He is both a doctor and professor of basketball."

Spain head coach Sergio Scariolo is a two-time EuroBakset winner and certainly qualifies as a professor of basketball himself, but the Italian gracefully admitted that his team on Saturday were on the receiving end of a Bjelica lecture.

"He [Bjelica] is a great player who has reached a level of maturity that's helped him move away from those ups and downs which he had when he was younger," he said.

"When he was 18, everybody was expecting a lot of him, immediately.

"But players take time to develop.

"He is now a fantastic player and he is very tough to defend, he can shoot the ball from far or put it to the floor and drive.

"Nobody is unstoppable, but tonight [Saturday] he looked a little bit like that."

Could the unstoppable professor Bjelica light Serbia's path to the top of the group in Berlin?

"The road to first place in the group looks open now, but we are mostly happy to see the guys playing like a team and playing good defense, that is more important for us going forward," said Raduljica.

"The team is more or less the same like last year [when Serbia reached the Final at the FIBA Basketball World Cup].

"We have got the same playbook, we play the same defense, the same style, so there is not much difference."

"Of course [the absent this year] Nenad Krstic is a very good team-mate and excellent player.

"But we got two more guys [Ognjen Kuzmic and Nikola Milutinov] at my position so I am not alone.

"I believe in those guys, these guys can also play."

And they have the professor, more mature than ever, on their side.

Go to eurobasket2015.org for complete coverage of EuroBasket 2015.

FIBA