SRB - Popovic says Serbia & Montenegro lost concentration

SINGAPORE (FIBA World Championship) – Serbia & Montenegro guard Bojan Popovic has warned that any side failing to maintain its concentration against European heavyweights Spain is likely to be punished at the FIBA World Championship.

The two-time defending world champions were brushed aside by Pepu Hernandez's team on Saturday in the Philips Singapore Cup, losing 80-65.

"The main difference is that during yesterday's game [against Argentina], we were fully concentrated for 40 minutes," Popovic said.

"When you play against a team like Spain, you must concentrate and play hard for the whole game. We didn't do that today (Saturday) and that's why we lost.

"We did well to reduce their lead to two points at the start of the second half but after that, our concentration again was down, they made some open shots for three points and the difference was again 15."

Serbia & Montenegro coach Dragan Sakota was not surprised Spain won, and nor was he willing to place too much importance on the result since it is only a warm-up for the 24-team FIBA World Championship which gets underway on August 19.

His team is in Group A and will face Argentina, France, Venezuela, Lebanon and Nigeria.

"We got close but basically there are two reasons that Spain won," Sakota said.

"A very important reason is that the Spanish team is one of the strongest teams and they have many players with experience playing together and the way that they play is not easy for us to stop.

"The other side is we are preparing for the World Championship and according to our programme, we should have rested but we had a very strong practice in the morning and I guess that was the reason we had a very bad percentage.

"But we are still in preparation and we didn't care too much about the score at the end. It's just important to just have another game for our experience."

Sakota was concerned by the approach of his players early in the game.

"We shouldn't play the way that we did in the first half," he said.

"We have to avoid playing too fast and giving them the opportunity to run transitions and score easily. Conceding nearly 50 points to the Spanish team at half-time is the wrong way to play against them so we deserved to lose today."

Darko Milicic, the Serbia & Montenegro center, did not have much of an impact on the game.
"What is important for the team right now is to share the minutes during these three days but since the game was quite important, of course Darko would play much more," Sakota said.

"He's obviously our best player and it's becoming the goal of every opposition defence to stop him so it's not easy for him to play and it's very important for our other players to help out."

From Colin Pereira, PA Sport
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