U.S. 'can't get lulled to sleep' by past wins vs. Jokic, Serbia - ESPN

PARIS — Was Serbia playing possum?

In the wake of Team USA's easy win over Brazil in the Olympic men's basketball quarterfinals, coach Steve Kerr was adamant that his team not rest on the 26-point win over the Serbians in the first game of pool play 10 days ago. Or the 26-point win over Serbia in Abu Dhabi on July 17.

Kerr wonders if Serbia and Nikola Jokic might have played a long game with the Americans and are ready to unveil some surprises when they meet for a third time in less than a month in Thursday's high-stakes semifinals (3 p.m. ET).

«We can't get lulled to sleep because we beat them twice,» Kerr said. «We have to be prepared for their best effort. We've got to think about what are they going to do differently. Jokic, I guess he could play 40 minutes. What else do they have up their sleeve?»

There is no opposing player in the Olympics that the Americans have more respect for than Jokic. They've watched him become a three-time Most Valuable Player and champion in the NBA. And when Jokic has been on the court in France, Serbia has been terrific.

He leads Serbia in points (19.3), rebounds (11.8), assists (7.5), steals (2.5) and blocks (1.0) per game. He's also shooting 60%. With Jokic on the floor, Serbia has outscored its opponents by 43 points. When he's been on the bench, they've been outscored by 12 points.

In the 31 minutes that Jokic played in the lopsided loss to the U.S. on July 28, the score was even. In the nine minutes he sat, the Americans outscored Serbia 29-3, though it coincided with a red-hot shooting streak from Kevin Durant that Jokic himself probably couldn't have done much about.

In the quarterfinals, Serbia made a historic comeback from 24 points down to beat Australia in overtime. They were