Serbia’s Nikola Jovic. -MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines—Nikola Jovic deflected his stellar game to his teammates after leading Serbia past Puerto Rico in the Fiba World Cup on Monday night at Smart Araneta Coliseum.
The 20-year-old Jovic unleashed his best game yet in the World Cup with 17 points built on three triples on top of four assists and three rebounds in a 94-77 win for a 2-0 record in Group B.
But Jovic, the incoming sophomore for NBA finalists Miami Heat, refused to take credit despite stepping up big time for his team.
“My teammates found me and I hit some open shots. That’s it,” said Jovic in the postgame press conference.
The 6-foot-10 forward attributed Serbia’s win to Bogdan Bogdanovic, who shot just 5-of-16 from the field but still came away with 17 points on top of five rebounds and five assists.
Serbia’s Bogdan Bogdanovic. -MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net
“That’s why we won we run our offense through him. He’s our best player that’s not a question and he didn’t have a great night shooting the ball but we believe in him and I just got my shots,” Jovic said. “I’m sure he’ll be better. Maybe today was not his day but for sure we’ll continue to run our offense through him because we believe in him. He and [Nikola] Milutinov have a great connection in pick n roll and they’re going a great job.”
Bogdanovic, who averaged 15.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 4.0 assists in two matches, lauded the impact Jovic has been providing to Serbia, saying that Miami drafted the right player with their 27th pick in the 2022 NBA Rookie Draft.
“He is an amazing player. Miami Heat drafted him for a reason. He’s really a hardworking guy, first of all. Always like to work, always like to improve his game and I’ve been following him since the under-19 World Cup,” Bogdanovic told reporters.
Despite winning their first two games in Group B, Jovic insisted that they still have a lot of work to do ahead of their final group phase match against South Sudan (1-1) on Wednesday after seeing their 32-point lead dwindle down to just 10 in the fourth quarter.
“[In the] first half, we did what the coaching staff wanted. We did a great job defending them. They scored only 27 points and we were great in offense. But the second half wasn’t great for us. We did the exact opposite. They made a lot of threes. The result is great because we won but I would not say we were that happy,” Jovic said.