Serbia boots out Towns, Dominicans; battles Lithuania in quarterfinals

Serbia gave Dominican Republic a 40-minute beat down leading from start to finish for an emphatic 112–70 win to secure a seat to the quarterfinals of the FIBA World Cup on Sunday night at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

It only took the Serbians a 26-9 start to snuff the fight out of the Dominicans, who had to endure a crushing blowout that went as high as 38 points.

Serbia rebounded from a stinging loss to Italy and handed the Dominican Republic its second straight loss after a perfect run in the first round.

The Serbians will meet Lithuania, which scored a 110-104 upset over favored United States to top Group J, in the knockout quarterfinals starting Tuesday.

Group I top seed Italy and US will face off in the other quarters pairing.

Bogdan Bogdanovic went perfect 7-of-7 from the field including three treys and missed only one of his four free throws to finish with 20 points while adding five assists and three steals for Serbia.

"In their group, they were winning all the games. So they're a serious contender with Karl-Anthony Towns. For sure, he makes the team way better. Difficult to guard," Bogdanovic said.

"But I like that Nikola Jovic tonight didn't score but from the moment of the beginning of the game, he took the challenge and he started to guard him one-on-one, fight."

Serbia blew the game wide-open, 95-57, after Aleksa Avramovic's alley-oop slamdunk in the last 7:58.

Nikola Milutinov and Vanja Marinkovic had 16 each for the 2014 edition runner-up Serbia.

Dominican Republic star Karl-Anthony Towns finished with 25 points and seven boards before calling it a night with three minutes left in the ball game.