Sacramento Kings forward Nemanja Bjelica didn't have the best day at the office for his native Serbia, as a 5-of-17 shooting night marred a rough FIBA World Cup quarterfinal loss against Argentina. Bjelica was the first to take ownership of his own performance, quickly taking the blame:
“We weren’t ready for this game. Especially mentally. Especially myself. I take complete responsibility for it,” said Bjelica in the postgame press conference, according to Aris Barkas of Eurohoops. “I know we are a team but as one of the leaders… I must say I played like s**t.”
“I want to apologize to our country and the people who believed in us. We have a very good team but you know how it is. In this kind of tournament doesn’t mean anything. Maybe we were a better team than Argentina but they showed us and wanted this victory more than us. In this moment.”
Serbia was favored to come out the winner of this matchup due to the sheer amount of NBA talent on the roster and the recent dominance in European competition, despite being only one spot higher than rival Argentina in the FIBA World Rankings:
“They deserved this victory today,” said Bjelica of the Argentinian side. “What I can say for us is that we are a great group of guys. We didn’t lose this game because are arrogant or we think that we are something special. We just didn’t prepare ourselves the right way. I can talk for hours but this loss is very tough. It’s hard. But it’s basketball.”
“We are a great f**ing group of guys. We are great people. We wanted to win this but we tried to win in a wrong way.”
Serbia enjoyed strong outings from Nikola Jokic and Bogdan Bogdanovic, but ultimately fell shy of closing a gap the Argentinians created to start the fourth quarter with their long-range shooting. Bjelica will have a chance to play for fifth place along with the rest of his teammates in the consolation bracket.
Follow Us
Subscribe