A last-gasp bucket from Milos Teodosic gave Serbia a 97-95 victory over Great Britain to bring day three to a close at the Olympic Test Event in London.
Despite Great Britain falling to their third straight defeat in the Olympic Basketball Arena there were positive signs as Chris Finch prepares for Eurobasket beginning on the 31st August.
GB led for the majority of the first half of play – but thanks to captain Nenad Krstic, who led all scorers with 21 points, Serbia stayed in touch and a Teodosic basket tied the contest at 44 going into the half-time interval.
It was Teodosic again who scored just over three minutes into the third quarter to give Serbia their first lead of the game before getting a technical to allow GB to re-take the lead and keep it going into the final period (73-69).
Serbia managed to pull away though in the closing stages after a back-and-forth battle, but, led by Eric Boateng, who had 15 points for Great Britain, the hosts stayed in contention and pulled it to a one-point game in the latter stages.
But with the game tied at 95, it was Teodosic who had the last laugh of the night, with a two-pointer with mere seconds remaining to put the Serbs up by two. Dan Clark had a chance to win it, but his three-pointer missed the target.
Elsewhere, France remained unbeaten at the Test Event with a comfortable 76-59 victory over winless China.
Tony Parker was rested for this game, but the French never looked troubled, as they produced their usual display of flawless team basketball to pull away from their Asian opponents.
Nicholas Batum led France with 15, Yi Jianlian led all scorers with 20.
Australia bounced back from a close defeat to France on day two with a impressive 78-66 victory over Croatia. Patrick Mills led with 22 points to hand Croatia their first defeat in London.
Note: Great Britain’s Luol Deng was in attendance during GB’s game with Serbia, and will play on Saturday against China. Today (Friday) is the Test Event’s rest day.
