France – Serbia

The second semifinal of the FIBA Basketball World Cup will see France take on Serbia, after both teams recorded impressive wins in the quarters.

Current Eurobasket champions France came to Spain without a ton of key players, most notably Tony Parker, Joakim Noah, Nando De Colo, Ian Mahinmi, Alexis Ajinka or Ronny Turiaf. In these circumstances the French, led by Diaw and Batum, were not really expected to reach the final stages of the FIBA World Cup but even so they grinded out 3 wins in 5 matches in the group stage, including a 74-73 over today`s opponents, Serbia. The followed the group performance with a 69-64 win over Croatia in the Round 16. Even though France was not particularly impressive, they did the job. However, nobody expected what was to come – a 65-52 win against Spain, who was priced at 1.05 to win the game. Even though Spain played an awful match, France deserves credit for taking the chance.

Serbia had a poor group stage, rather poor results and poor basketball from them, but in the knockout stage they looked like a totally different team, getting blowout wins against two very strong sides like Greece and Brazil. Skill and heart showed by the Serbians, who are looking like arguably the most cohesive and disciplined team in the tournament right now. The most intriguing fact in the match against Brazil was their defense, Serbia was absolutely fantastic and denied Brazil basically any open shots – the highly rated South Americans having to satisfy for contested jumpers, with a penetration here and there.

France did beat Serbia 74-73 in the Group Stages but I don`t think we need to put much emphasys on that result – Serbia was playing poorly, they also lost against Brazil in the group stages and then blew them out in the quarters. It was a close game anyway.

My first thought was Serbia to win this, they look to be more consistent, their defense was amazing two days ago and France`s win over Spain makes the French a little overrated, as Spain played poorly. However, France did play great basketball in the last few matches, defended amazing themselves, so I won`t count them out here. My bet will be on a low scoring game and an under – I`m sure Serbia will look to keep up the same defensive intensity as in the quarters, both on the perimeter and under the paint, which will make it very hard for France to get open shots. Meanwhile, France is a defensive team by definition and kept opponents under 65 points in the last two games. The stakes could hardly be any higher with a place in the final up for grabs so I expect attacks to be pushed towards 15-20 seconds and a high intensity on the defensive end for both teams – I can see a Serbia win as well but just by a hair. My tip is under 140 points and I`m not surprised the odds / line is dropping. Prediction: France – Serbia 65 – 68.

Pick: under 140
Odds: 2.00 @ Bet365
Stake: 8
Possible profit: 8
Event date: 11 September