Serbia overwhelms and eliminates Dominican Republic from the FIBA ​​World Cup

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The illusions of Dominican Republic After being in the quarterfinals of the World Cup, they collided head-on with a rocky Serbia, which clearly won the decisive duel between the two by a score of 112-79.

Serbia reached the quarterfinals from Group I, as Italy did previously at the expense of Puerto Rico (73-57).

Faith lasted a little more than three minutes for the Dominican Republic, which took them to get within three points with a triple from Karl-Anthony Towns after a 10-4 starting run for the Serbians. From then on the team’s will did not falter, although the reality was too harsh.

Vanja Marinkovic, Nikola Milutinov and especially Bogdan Bogdanovic carried out a constant work of attrition that began from the opening whistle and continued over time, materializing in a 16-2 streak until their team was 26-9. By then Svetislav Pesic’s team had scored seven of eight attempts from two and four of seven triples.

The response to that blow was to put attitude. And that allowed the Dominicans to regain some confidence and score more frequently. So much so that after Karl Anthony-Towns made two free throws at the dawn of the second quarter, the deficit was reduced to twelve points (29-17).

It was a mirage because the Balkan team soon returned to the charge on the back of their defense and an inspired Stefan Jovic, who scored nine of the 11 points that ended up breaking the game as it went from 33-20 to 44-23. Far from settling on that mattress, Serbia continued to be alert until they went over a 20-point lead at halftime (56-35).

The circumstances made the rest of the crash almost a formality. The pride and talent of Towns and the triples of Jean Montero meant that in the first half of the third act the rival did not take off even further, but it was a matter of time before that happened.

The martyrdom did not end there. In fact, the European team bordered on forty points in his favor, at which point Nestor Garcia called a time-out to activate his team in search of a defeat that was as dignified as possible. The idea worked and the Dominicans offered a better image until the conclusion despite the debacle, even obtaining the “consolation” of winning the decisive quarter.