FIBA World Cup: 2nd round taking shape; Day 3 takeaways
By Phil Watson
Group D blowouts continue
At Foshan, Italy and Serbia barely broke a sweat en route to qualifying for the second round of the FIBA World Cup.
Italy routed Angola 92-61 on Monday and Serbia followed with the most lopsided result of the tournament thus far, a 126-67 pasting of the Philippines.
Serbia found itself in an early 9-7 hole as the Gilas came out flying on both ends of the floor. But after a timeout, the talented Serbians regrouped and took control of the game with a 16-2 run.
They led 62-35 at the half and then outpaced the Philippines 64-32 after the break.
The one question for Serbia had been the health of Nemanja Bjelica, held out of their opening win over Angola with a sore knee.
Newsflash: He’s fine. The Sacramento Kings forward led seven Serbians in double-figures with 20 points on perfect 7-for-7 shooting, including 3-for-3 from deep. His Sacramento teammate, Bogdan Bogdanovic, added 17 points. Nikola Jokic played 19 minutes and piled up 11 points, even rebounds and seven assists.
Serbia shot a ridiculous 75 percent (48-for-64) overall and knocked down 12-of-22 from 3-point land (54.5 percent).
There was little the Gilas could do to stop that sort of onslaught. Jaymar Perez scored 16 points to lead the Philippines and Paul John Dalistan added 15. Andray Blatche had six assists before fouling out, but scored only five points on 2-of-10 shooting.
The Gilas hit 37.3 percent (25-for-67) overall and were only 4-for-24 (16.7 percent) from deep.
Angola was fiesty early in the opener, leading by four points in the first quarter before Italy got itself going and ran away with things.
The Italians led 44-21 by halftime and were never threatened from there.
Marco Belinelli of the San Antonio Spurs scored 17 points to lead Italy, while Jeff Brooks had 11 points and 11 rebounds.
Yanick Moreira had a solid game for Angola with 15 points and eight rebounds, but the Angolans struggled to get anything flowing offensively, with just six assists on 25 made shots.
Italy hit 50 percent (33-for-66) overall and was 12-for-30 (40 percent) from deep, while Angola was at 38.5 percent (25-for-65) overeall and 2-for-18 (11.1 percent) from long range.
Angola and the Philippines will square off at 3:30 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday with each looking to take a victory into the classification round.
Italy and Serbia, meanwhile, will look to be 3-0 when they hit Group J play in Nanting, where they will be joined by Spain and either Puerto Rico or Tunisia.