FOSHAN, China — Serbia coach Aleksandr Djordjevic took exception to guard Paul Lee’s unsportsmanlike foul during the fourth quarter of Gilas Pilipinas’ 126-67 loss Monday night in the FIBA World Cup here.
Lee bumped Marko Guduric with 7:36 left in the fourth quarter, resulting in the Serbian cager to fall to the ground and almost knocking down a referee in the process.
“I don’t like dirty play and I don’t like it when you have an intention…it seemed to me an intention to hurt a player,” Djordjevic said inside the press conference room of the Foshan International Sports and Cultural Center here.
“I don’t want my player to be hurt for the third game (against Italy) that why I was so worried and you have to stop that,” he added.
Serbia is set to play Italy on Wednesday with the winner clinching top spot in Group D.
“You have to play fair and square, play physical but tough and fair play. That’s what I asked for the players and that’s what I asked for the opponents because this is not a way to play an opponent,” continued Djodjevic.
A few meters away, Gilas coach Yeng Guiao begged to disagree when told of Djodjevic’s comments.
“I don’t think so,” Guiao told Filipino reporters. “I guess if you wanted to hurt somebody, that’s not the only way you can do.”
Guiao added that he was more concerned with how the officiating favored the Serbians throughout the contest.
“We couldn’t understand a lot of their calls. I felt that they took away our momentum — the early fouls on Blatche and a lot of touch fouls. I couldn’t understand. There are referees worse than the PBA refs.” (Jonas Terrado)
