Serbia Routs Iceland 102-73, Faces Italy Monday

Ten minutes into the game at Belgrade Arena, the scoreboard showed something nobody in the building expected before the start of the second qualifying window for the 2027 Mundobasket: Iceland was ahead, 27-25. The team from the far north had set up a zone, kept Serbia away from the paint, and punished it in transition, on fast breaks and with three point shots.

Dusan Alimpijevic admitted after the game that it was a brand of basketball nobody had planned for.

“We didn’t play the first quarter the way we wanted, because it was a kind of basketball we didn’t expect. It’s atypical basketball, with a lot of three point shots, running and transition,” Serbia’s head coach said at the post match press conference.

The answer arrived in the second quarter, and it was named Nikola Tanaskovic. Partizan’s new signing was involved on the boards in almost every possession and scored 15 of his eventual 23 points in that stretch alone, the main reason Serbia turned the game around. At the same time, Nikola Milutinov came in for Nikola Jokic and stabilized the paint, shutting off the easy points that Hlinason was used to getting, both for Iceland and in Spain’s ACB league. Three pointers from Lakic, Guduric, and Avramovic finished the job. Serbia won the second quarter 27-15 and went into the break up ten, 52-42.

Iceland pulled back within single digits in the third quarter, but there was barely any tension for the rest of the game. Serbia won the final period 32-12 and closed out the match with a margin of almost thirty points, 102-73 in the end. The quarter by quarter score read 25-27, 27-15, 18-19, and 32-12.

The stats tell the same story as the game itself. Tanaskovic finished with 23 points and 5 rebounds, Nikola Jovic added 21, Marko Guduric 17, and Nemanja Dangubic and Nikola Milutinov 10 each. Jokic wasn’t on the floor to score: his 6 points came with 8 rebounds and 13 assists, a typical night for a playmaker rather than a scorer. For Iceland, Fridriksson led the way with 19, Hermannsson had 18, and Hlinason added 14.

Jokic admitted after the game that the start had been slow.

“We didn’t show enough energy at the start, the entire second half was exactly how it should be,” Jokic said.

Tanaskovic, who did the most to turn the game around, is already looking ahead to the next challenge.

“This gives us confidence going into the matchup with Italy,” Tanaskovic said.

Alimpijevic also revealed after the match a detail that explains why the first quarter looked the way it did: Dejan Davidovac didn’t play at all because the coach didn’t want to risk him, and Jovan Novak had been on IV drips before the game, hadn’t left the hotel, and had only had one training session.

“Not many people know that Jovan Novak was on IV drips, that he hadn’t left the hotel, was exhausted, and had only one training session. In one day we had three players sidelined, of course that was felt,” the head coach said.

The win moved Serbia into a share of second place in Group J. After seven rounds, Turkey is unbeaten at 7-0, while Serbia and Italy both sit at five wins and two losses. The top three teams in the group advance to the 2027 World Cup in Qatar, and the rest of the results in this round worked in Serbia’s favor too: Bosnia and Herzegovina upset Italy, 78-76, while Turkey cruised past Lithuania, 94-66.

The next test comes fast. Serbia travels to face Italy on Monday, August 31, at 7:30 p.m., in a game that will directly decide who finishes second and who finishes third in the group, and with it, who heads to Qatar from which position.

“They have a recipe for playing against Serbia, we’ll try to neutralize some of those habits. I don’t know if they’re missing anyone. Our preparation will be based on their last game, because this is a squad that has nothing to do with the previous windows,” Alimpijevic said, previewing the away duel.

We previously wrote about ticket prices for the Iceland game and about Jokic leading the Eagles in this window. Now it’s clear that the window opened exactly as it was supposed to, with one slow start that Alimpijevic’s bench corrected without panic. A trip to Italy is an entirely different kind of test. There won’t be room for a slow first quarter there.