Semi-Final preview: Can Serbia's defense and speed contain MVP Shai?

– In a battle of fast and athletic teams, the question remains: Will Serbia make it back to the Final after nine years, or will Canada get to the title game for the first time ever?

We’ll find out after tip-off on Friday, at 4:45 a.m. ET or 1:45 a.m. PT in Canada, at 10:45 a.m. CET in Serbia, at 16:45 local time in the Mall of Asia Arena in Manila.

Key matchup: Just two days after taking out one of the biggest MVP candidates, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander gets to take on another one. Bogdan Bogdanovic is waiting on the other side of the floor, and people tend to forget how lethal Bogdan is in a Serbian national team jersey. He’s been spectacular so far in this World Cup.

Bogdanovic is averaging 18.8 points, with 4.8 assists, 3.2 rebounds and 2.2 steals to his name, too. If you take out his horrible shooting game against Italy, he would also be at 15-of-30 from the three-point line in the other five games. That’s 50 percent on six shots attempted from deep.

Gilgeous-Alexander has got all the numbers for Canada. He’s coming off back-to-back 30+ point games, and he’s up to 25.0 points, 7.2 rebounds, 5.0 assists and 1.7 steals per game, while shooting 54.7 percent from the field. His efficiency rating is just off the charts (30.2 average, first of the competition) which is really rare for a guard.

X factors: Battle of the bigs could be something. Canada went with a small-ball lineup without a typical power forward of a center against Slovenia, and the spacing opened up the floor, while the physicality was still there to switch everything defensively.

Against Serbia, that could be troubling because of the Serbia’s one-two center punch in Nikola Milutinov and Filip Petrusev. Kelly Olynyk and Dwight Powell will have their hands full, if they win those matchups, they could be the X factor to push Canada through.

Stats don’t lie: Serbia will have to box out every single player on that Canadian roster, because all of them are capable of stealing offensive rebounds. Canada average 13 offensive boards per game, which gets them 13.3 second chance points a night.

At the same time, pushing men to go for offensive rebounds could leave Canada vulnerable at the other end, because nobody runs the floor like Serbia. They average 24.7 points from turnovers and 21.8 fast break points, +5 and +7 on Canada in those respective columns.

Past matchups: Canada has never faced Serbia, but have three relevant games to this matchup. That’s because in 1998, 2000 and 2002 they played against the former FR Yugoslavia, federation made of today’s Serbia and Montenegro.

In 1998, FR Yugoslavia won their FIBA Basketball World Cup battle 95-55 with all 12 players scoring, led by Miroslav Beric’s 13 points. In 2000, Canada struck back at the Olympics, thanks to a monster performance by Steve Nash who had 26 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists in an 83-75 win in the Group Stage.

Their final duel came in 2002, in another World Cup. Current Serbia head coach Svetislav Pesic was calling the plays for FR Yugoslavia in an 87-71 win with a 23-point, 10-rebound double-double by Peja Stojakovic.

Dejan Bodiroga had 12 points v Canada in 2002

Honorable mention from that game: Rowan Barrett, RJ’s father and current general manager of Canada Basketball, scored a team-high 18 points for Canada.

They said: “This is the way the tournament works. We had no time to celebrate (the win over Lithuania), we regrouped that night, watched Slovenia v Canada and started our preparations for that game. We need to be ready, we need to recuperate as much as possible. The final score said we won by 20 against Lithuania, but we had to give it our 300 percent.” – Bogdan Bogdanovic, Serbia

“In the Quarter-Finals, we had 25 assists once again against a fantastic opponent. We’re the best team of the World Cup in fast break points, we score 25 transition points per game. We don’t have a lot of size, but we keep finding ways to use our good sides and hide the bad ones. Every player gave his all for the team, that’s important for us. This has been our motto, all for one and one for all.” – Svetislav Pesic, Serbia head coach

“They are a very good team, coached by one of the best European coaches ever. I’ve watched him since I was a little kid, he won with FC Barcelona in 2003. A great coach, a great program, guys who know what it is, who have a lot of FIBA experience, something that we lack, but we’re getting this day by day. We’re gonna get better every single day, every single game. When we play Serbia, we’ll be better than (v Slovenia).” – Jordi Fernandez, Canada head coach

“We watched a bit of their last game v Lithuania. They play really well, they play together, one of my high school teammates Filip Petrusev is on the team, so it’s gonna be fun going up against him.” – RJ Barrett, Canada

FIBA