Pesic: “Proud! We’ll be ready in the final – It’s not time to talk about Jokic”

THE Svetislav Pesic returns after 20 years in a final World Cup with Serbia and he is confident that his team will present themselves properly on Sunday. The coach of “Plavi” avoided talking about him long absent Nikola Jokic.

“I am very proud of my players, of my team, the victory we got is great. I’ll say it again, great game against Canada. For me the best defensive team of the tournament. We were also good in defense, we showed that we can do damage by surprise. Important in the preparation was to take the Canadians by surprise, to play good defense one-on-one, especially Gilgeous-Alexander, one of the best players I have seen in my entire career. It was motivation for my team to take him out of the match and we did it. For me the third quarter is always important, we have to learn from the journey“, he emphasized.

“The final is the final, we don’t care who the opponent will be. He will play hard and we have to prepare for that. Rebounding was also important, especially against an opponent strong in offensive rebounding. We checked it. We didn’t play a great attack, but with our defense and our defensive rebounding, we succeeded and closed the match. We are truly happy. After 20 years, I’m here in Manila with a new team, everything is new to me, in a new situation. No games are ever the same, no leagues or World Cups are ever the same. We’ll see what happens in the final. I’m very happy with what happened today, but I’m calm because I know my players will be ready to face the USA if the USA beat Germany of course. In these games, sometimes you don’t know who’s going to win. Germany has shown who they are since last year’s EuroBasket, they have a great coach and players who are all improving together“, he added.

Asked about Serbia reaching the final without Nikola Jokic, he said: “This is not the right time to talk about Jokic. He is always part of the team, because he is currently the best player in the world and a great person. This is not the time to talk about them, but about those who are here».