The Greek NT played 2 friendlies against Turkey and won both of them.
First last Thursday and then last sunday.
The first win was a blow out in Athens (78:52) the second in Istanbul was closer with the gap being 5 points (75:70).
Greece closed out the game at the last 2 min with Giannis being a major piece of it on both ends.
Serbia played 2 friendlies against France and won both. First away (79:77) and second at home 94:88.
Of course France is a much better opponent than Turkey so Serbia seems to be "on track" while Greece can consider the first
win against Turkey as a better warm up or training game.
The Greek Coach has announced that he is not 100% sure about the final roster of Greece so he is still making a lot of changes
during the games (which is obvious).
Under this circumstances I am quite sure that Greece will not win in Belgrade.
The Greeks will have an addition in Stratos Perperoglou who was involved in the spanish League Finals before some days
(he plays for Barcelona) and therefor got some extra days of.
One of Greek main Guards (Kostas Sloukas) has not played until now as he is still injured. The coach will wait for him
until the last second as he is crucial for the Greek NT.
Until now Giannis played Point Forward in offense and a lot of minutes. In defense he has been guarding mainly the opponent
SG and PG.
I did not really like this as Greece has encountered big rebounding problems and Giannis being so far away from the rim does not really help.
In offense Nick Calathes is not a good fit with Giannis as Calathes needs the ball in his hands to create.
You can easily see that if there is no obvious possibilty for a fast break the first pass after a rebound always goes to Calathes.
If a fast break is possible than the first pass goes to Giannis.
In half court Giannis is stuck in the corners too much. Yesterday we saw some nice alley-oops from Nick to Giannis though.
I would prefer that Nicks runs the second unit and Giannis pairs with Sloukas (a much better shooter than Calathes).
The serbian teams always have a very high BB IQ so they will foul Giannis in transition all the time. At least they would do so
in a tournament. We will see how serious they will take this game.
The penulitmate friendly between Greece and Serbia in 2010 this happend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82D7i_YRiME
Shortsianitis (some may know him as baby shaq) was chasing Kristic after the later beat him in the back several times and
afterwards Kristic hit Bourousis with a chair. Bourousis was not directly involved and just wanted to separate the opponents.
Funny thing is that most of the guys on both sides of the court where team mates either at Olympiacos Pireaus or Panathinaikos.
Then for 4 years there have been no friendlies after this
But in 2014 we played them before the World Cup and won but then lost with a big difference in the Top 16.So there is some tension around this game.
The Serbian team has been rumored to have some internal beef. The Coach publicly accused some players of bad behaviour.
Against France there was a small brawl again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y0C9xKP410
Nuggets Jokic and Ajinca from the Pelicans involved.
