EuroBasket - Spain roar past Serbia into Semis

LJUBLJANA (EuroBasket/FIBA Basketball World Cup) - Spain, the two-time defending champions, fended off any doubts of their class over the first two weeks of EuroBasket 2013 and booked the first spot in the Semi-Finals by blowing past Serbia 90-60 in Wednesday's first Quarter-Final.

Sergio Rodriguez scored 14 of his 22 points in the second quarter while Rudy Fernandez had 13 of his 19 points in the first period and Marc Gasol chipped in seven points, six assists and five rebounds for Spain, who will face the winner of the day's second Quarter-Final between Slovenia and France in Friday’s Semi-Final.

"It helped that we played pretty good defensively," Gasol said afterwards.

"We didn't let our offense dictate our defense. Sometimes you might not make a shot but defensively you have to be really consistent. I thought that tonight we were. We didn't let down.

"In the three games that we lost we had the same line but when we had the lead we kind of gave up or slowed down. But tonight we kept the pedal to the metal."

Serbia, the tournament's youngest team, shot 38 percent for the game including four of 18 from long range (22 percent) and watched as Spain hit 52 percent (13 of 25) of their triples.

Despite the loss, the Serbs, who were paced by 11 points each from Danilo Andjusic and Rasko Katic, remain alive in the race for the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup as they move to the 5-8 Classification Round and face the losers between Slovenia and France on Thursday. The winner of that game will also reach the World Cup.

"They started from the first minute to lead and we didn't have enough power and energy in ourselves to keep the result tight," said Katic.

"They just started taking the game from the first quarter. The game was over after the first five minutes."

Spain started the game with high intensity pressure defensively and never allowed the Serbs to get into a rhythm.

Jose Calderon and Ferdandez both nailed triples to open an 8-0 lead. Nikola Kalinic scored Serbia's only basket of the quarter to make it 8-2. Fernandez knocked down two more three-pointers and Serbia coach Dusan Ivkovic looked on in amazement as his team made just one of 11 shots in the quarter to go with five turnovers as Spain led 21-5 after 10 minutes.

Andjusic opened the second period with a triple to give Serbia a bit of relief and the underdogs closed to within 26-14. But Rodriguez had 11 of his 14 points in the quarter in a 17-3 Spain run which opened the game up for good - 43-17. It was 45-23 before Pablo Aguilar's triple at the buzzer for a 48-23 advantage.

Little changed in the second half, which Spain opened on a 10-0 run to drown any hopes Serbia may have had.

The Spanish advantage swelled to 40 points and was 73-39 after three quarters.

Serbia could not cut into the lead against Spain’s reserves, trimming the margin to only 27 points over the fourth quarter.

For full and in-depth coverage of EuroBasket 2013, go to the official website http://www.eurobasket2013.org.

FIBA