CAN/GRE/SLO/SRB - Canada hit back to stun Serbia

ATHENS (FIBA World Championship) - For the second day in a row, Canada were involved in one of the more eye-catching results of the warm-up season for the FIBA World Championship.

But unlike Tuesday's 123-49 loss at the hands of Greece, this time it was good news for Leo Rautins' men as they upset Serbia 62-58 at the Acropolis Tournament in Athens.

Canada caught Serbia totally cold and turned a 34-27 advantage into a stunning 53-29 lead.

Serbia rallied late on with a 20-6 run but they had left themselves with too much to do as they suffered their first defeat of the summer.

"It was a good bounce back for our team to win today after yesterday's game," Rautins said. "We had our legs back today and played with much more aggression. The results of that intensity showed on the defensive end."

Denham Brown led Canada with 22 points, 17 of them in the first half.

"Denham gave us a nice lift with his scoring, getting to the basket consistently and being aggressive," Rautins added.

Brown claimed the result was a more accurate reflection of where Canada are at compared to the Greece rout.

"We showed how tough we are, getting blown out yesterday and coming back to beat a strong Serbian team," he said. "Tonight we showed what our team is all about."

Dusan Ivkovic took a share of the blame for the loss for his decision to rest Nenad Krstic, based on what he had seen of Greece's blowout the night before.

"As a coach I thought, but was wrong, that we could have a game like we had against New Zealand in Maribor (last weekend) where we were able to win without Krstic and (Milos) Teodosic," he said.

"Krstic did not play because he has had the shortest amount of preparation of anyone in the squad and also had a slight finger injury. So we went back to Teodosic, but that was our worst period in the game - at the beginning of the third quarter we failed to put up a single shot.

"When in the fourth quarter we went on a 20-6 run we showed a certain freshness, and cut the gap to four points, but it was not enough.

"I hope we will draw a lot of lessons from this game so that we can play better against Greece, who have shown so far they are excellent shooters."

And indeed Greece were red hot again on Wednesday night as they beat Slovenia 96-72.

Greece fired in an array of three-point shots and at one point threatened to run away with another game, building a 58-26 half-time lead before Slovenia came back.

Nick Calathes led Greece with 16 points, while Sofoklis Schortsanitis shook off any effects of a finger injury suffered against Canada to pour in 15 points.

Gaspar Vidmar had 17 points to lead Slovenia who were without both Primoz Brezec and Bostjan Nachbar through injury.

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