Breaking Down The Wild Ending To The Serbia-Croatia Game
With Serbia and Croatia battling for a spot in the quarter finals everyone was expecting a tight game, and they got it. No matter how good the first 39:30 of the game was, it doesn’t even come close when comparing it to the final fifteen seconds of the game. The final fifteen seconds had five key plays take place, let’s look at them:
Serbia Fouls Up Three
In the NBA or the college game, whether or not teams foul when up by three points is a big debate. However, in the international/FIBA game, you don’t really see any hesitation when it comes to these situations. Every time a team has a chance to foul with the lead late, they take advantage of it, and that is what Serbia does here:
Fouling up three isn’t as easy as it looks, you want to let some time come off the clock, but you don’t want to let the offensive player get in his shooting motion behind the three point line. Here, Dusko Savanovic does a very nice job of taking the foul while letting some time come off the clock before taking the foul (a whole six seconds). He lets the ball handler dribble it on the outside, and as soon as he makes his move, Savanovic takes the foul.
Serbia’s Turnover Under Their Own Basket
After Croatia hit both of their foul shots, Serbia still held a one point lead. With 0:15 seconds left, all they needed to do was get the basketball inbounds and continue the foul shooting contest. However, some poor execution lead to a turnover:
Croatia takes the man covering the basketball and turns him around to double anyone who breaks to the basketball. Serbia counters by using two players and having them stay near foul line, sending one to the corner.
