Argentina defeated Serbia 97-87 in the first quarterfinal game in the FIBA Basketball World Cup in the south Chinese city of Dongguan on Tuesday. Luis Scola dropped 20 points, five rebounds and Facundo Campazzo had 18 points, 12 assists. Nikola Jokic of Serbia followed Giannis Antetokounmpo to become the second NBA superstar to quit the tournament. In the other game that ended later, Spain beat Poland 90-78 to become the second team entering the semifinals.

Argentina, which have a smaller franchise, decided to bet on their speed and agility by sending a small-ball squad – for example, 39-year-old, 2.06-meter-tall Scola was guarding 24-year-old, 2.13-meter Jokic. In offense, Argentina tried to take every chance to drive up the speed of the game and kept every player moving with the ball. In defense, all players focused on denying the ball and double teaming anyone breaking into the paint.

Such risky tactic worked in the first five minutes as Argentina soon scored 12 points. However, they began to pay the price in the following game as Serbia started to use their advantage in height and size to hurt the opponents. In the first quarter, Serbia led grabbed 15 rebounds, seven on the offensive glass, leading 15-2 over Argentina. They also earned 11 fouls from the opponents, which led to 11 free throws by Serbia.

Though Argentina led 25-23 in Q1, three of their players carried two fouls with them, which revealed the topic of this game – Argentina were leading the rhythm but their unit was too vulnerable to make any mistake; Serbia were comfortable with striking after their opponents because their advantage would grow as the game went on.

Serbia sent Boban Marjanovic at the beginning of the second quarter, but this substitution did not work well. Though Argentina had no one to match Marjanovic in size, the 2.21-meter giant was too slow when he was surrounded by four Argentinian players under the rim. Besides, Argentina continued to explode from the 3-point line, expanding their lead again and forcing coach Sasha Djordjevic to take Jokic back.

After the first two quarters, the good news for Argentina was they buried nine 3-pointers at a rate of 56 percent; the bad news was, they only led by five points (54-49) and Serbia began to make shots from the 3-point line too.

Serbia made change first in the third quarter by increasing isolation offense, which makes sense because in most matchups, their players are bigger and stronger than their Argentinian defenders. Besides, even if they could score directly, earning fouls would make trouble for Argentina.

In the last three minutes of Q3, Serbia increased ball pressure which led to more turnovers by the opponents. Though Argentina saw their lead narrowed down to one point (68-67), the team's two most important players, Scola and Campazzo got enough time to rest before the final quarter.

Argentina continued their magical touch in Q4 and were even smoother in offense. By contrast, the whole team of Serbia were depressed by the growing score difference and lost their passion for rebounds. As a result, Argentina established a 11-point lead (87-76) when there were less than four minutes left.

Serbia chose to put Jokic on the bench to go all-court on Argentina. However, without a true big man in the paint, their defense became even more vulnerable in front of the opponents' offense based on sharp passes and crafty slashing. In the end, Argentina made the semifinals after knocking out one of the biggest championship contenders of the World Cup.