Serbia Book EuroBasket Place With Win Over Finns

Serbia hit Finland with an 18-0 run bridging the third and fourth quarters on Wednesday and won 92-66 to seal first place in EuroBasket qualifying Group A and earn a trip to next year's Final Round in Poland.

Dusan Ivkovic's team won for the sixth time in seven games.

The Blues, playing before another huge crowd (15,700) in Belgrade, led 25-24 but outscored the Finns 21-4 over the final 5:37 of the first half for a 46-28 lead at the break.

Finland, who have enjoyed a great qualifying campaign after winning promotion from Division B, refused to give in and clawed the deficit back to 60-52 with 1:37 remaining in the third quarter.

Nenad Krstic sparked a 7-0 run to close the frame and Zoran Erceg hit three three-pointers in an 11-0 spurt to start the fourth as Serbia went in front 78-52.

They cruised the rest of the way.

Erceg finished with 21 points and seven rebounds to lead the Blues.

Finland's Petri Virtanen made three of his five shots from long range on his way to 11 points.

Serbia out-rebounded Finland 41-24.

Finland had won the first encounter between the sides in Vantaa on August 30, 80-77.

Quotes Serbia vs. Finland

Finland's Head Coach Henrik Dettman: "You might be surprised when I say that I feel really good even after a 26 point lost. We played in a great basketball environment, in front of so many people. We are not used to playing in front of 15.000 people, and that is a great honor for us. There is a big difference in the quality of these two teams. Serbia played constantly through the whole game both on offense and in defense. We will have chance to get to EuroBasket 2009 through the Additional Qualifying Round and in order to achieve that we have to beat Hungary in the next game we have. That is the reason why I had all the players in rotation on the floor, and I took chance to relax some of our key players for that upcoming game."

Serbia's Zoran Erceg: "Before the beginning of the game we knew what we could get from this game direct ticket to EuroBasket 2009. That is the reason why we started the game in a nervous way, and also we were not aggressive enough at the beginning. The opponent used that against us and they had a lead throughout the first quarter. The moment we started playing in a more aggressive way in defense we got in to a position to win the game. In the upcoming game in Bulgaria we will play in an honest way and without calculations. Big thanks to the fans that were with us all this time during these qualifications."

Serbia's head coach Dusan Ivkovic: "Tonight we showed and proved that we have a young and very good team, and that we also play well. In this game players from the bench gave a big contribution for this win. There is an obvious difference in the quality of these two teams which was obvious the moment we started playing in a more aggressive way.  Our team had 21 assist in this game, also 21 easy baskets, but also 20 turnovers. We celebrated reaching the first spot in our group when we got to the locker room after the game and in this way we completed the short term goal that we had to qualify for EuroBasket 2009. But we are continuing with practicing tomorrow and we are preparing for game in Bulgaria. We came to play in Belgrade Arena by accident, but it turned out that it was a very good thing for us. You could see a lot young fans who helped us in reaching this goal."