-
Brian Windhorst, ESPN Senior Writer
PARIS — Was Serbia playing possum?
In the wake of Team USA’s easy win over Brazil in the Olympic men’s basketball quarterfinals, coach Steve Kerr was adamant that his team not rest on the 26-point win over the Serbians in the first game of pool play 10 days ago. Or the 26-point win over Serbia in Abu Dhabi on July 17.
Kerr wonders if Serbia and Nikola Jokic might have played a long game with the Americans and are ready to unveil some surprises when they meet for a third time in less than a month in Thursday’s high-stakes semifinals (3 p.m. ET).
“We can’t get lulled to sleep because we beat them twice,” Kerr said. “We have to be prepared for their best effort. We’ve got to think about what are they going to do differently. Jokic, I guess he could play 40 minutes. What else do they have up their sleeve?”
There is no opposing player in the Olympics that the Americans have more respect for than Jokic. They’ve watched him become a three-time Most Valuable Player and champion in the NBA. And when Jokic has been on the court in France, Serbia has been terrific.
He leads Serbia in points (19.3), rebounds (11.8), assists (7.5), steals (2.5) and blocks (1.0) per game. He’s also shooting 60%. With Jokic on the floor, Serbia has outscored its opponents by 43 points. When he’s been on the bench, they’ve been outscored by 12 points.
In the 31 minutes that Jokic played in the lopsided loss to the U.S. on July 28, the score was even. In the nine minutes he sat, the Americans outscored Serbia 29-3, though it coincided with a red-hot shooting streak from Kevin Durant that Jokic himself probably couldn’t have done much about.
In the quarterfinals, Serbia made a historic comeback from 24 points down to beat Australia in overtime. They were plus-17 with Jokic in the game and minus-12 in the seven minutes he sat.
Those numbers are why Kerr is speculating Jokic just might not sit — or perhaps only for brief moments — as Serbia looks to maximize its chance to pull the upset.
“I guess we’ll be ready for that,” said Joel Embiid, who is likely to get the start against Jokic. “If that’s what they think they have to do to try to beat us, then they won’t hesitate to do that.”
Serbian coach Svetislav Pesic, 74, is one of the most experienced coaches in Europe, having coached across the continent — including winning the gold medal with Yugoslavia at the 2022 World Championship. His system means the ball is in Jokic’s hands a bit less than when playing for the Denver Nuggets — an inverse of what is normally seen with NBA stars when playing for their national teams — but when it matters, Jokic is in control. He made three clutch defensive plays — a steal, a block and slapping a ball off the rim to prevent a basket — plus the two definitive hoops in the stretch run to put down Australia.
In the two games against the U.S., Pesic has played Jokic in unusual rotations. In the game in Abu Dhabi, Jokic oddly played the entire first three quarters without coming out, not normal for a friendly game. In the game in the Olympics, Pesic was slow to bring Jokic off the bench when the U.S. was on a giant run.
All that aside, Serbia played spells of excellent defense in making the comeback against Australia. Atlanta Hawks guard Bogdan Bogdanovic is also playing well, averaging 18.5 points and shooting a sterling 48% on 3-pointers and 90% from the foul line.
Serbia has won three straight games since losing to the U.S.
“Every game is its own test. No matter what happened in the first two, it’s about what goes down Thursday night,” LeBron James said. “So we need to lock in our film session, lock in during the day on Thursday and then come out and be ready to go.”