Serbia

Coach Zoran Slavnic: "It's all my fault and I take the full responsibility. I picked the players so I can't blame them. Israel played very tough. I said before the championship that if we finish ninth or lower I'll go live in Iceland. I might just have to do that now."

Marko Jaric: "We didn't play hard enough, but most of all we under-estimated Israel. We shouldn't have done that, but still we did, and that's one of the main reasons we lost this game. The big game last night made us very tired."

Israel

Coach Zvika Sherf: "Big congratulations to my players. Today we gave a great game and also played good basketball. At half time we spoke only about defense. We can't score 90 points often. In the second half, we made a great job defensively and it gave us confidence offensively. Yaniv Green had a great game. Guy Pnini opened because he needed to stop Milan Gurovic. I'm very happy for the Israeli people and everybody who supports us. In the first game (against Greece) we were pushing for 40 minutes and maybe it was hurting us against the Russian, so I let some players rest yesterday in the second half. Serbia played a long game yesterday and maybe they were tired. We're now going to the next round and we'll try to do our best."

Yaniv Green: "Tough match for us today. We had some problems believing we can win the game because of what happened to us last night. In the second half, we came with a big spirit and intensity. Everybody gave 100% because we knew it can be our last 20 minutes together. But we can continue to be with each other for a couple more days."

Guy Pnini: "I can't explain how happy we are. Not many people believed we can do this after the big loss to Russia, but we showed great character and made it happen. We are especially happy for the people back home in Israel who support us all the time. At all points we believed we can make it, but it was tough because Serbia is a good team. Now we have three more games, and we don't plan to lose them. We'll give our best against any team like today and try to make it to the top eight again."

Yotam Halperin: "When Meir Tapiro went to shoot the last two shots, I knew we'll win this game. He's a great winner. Yaniv Green and Guy Pnini also played great, and this shows it was a team effort. Israel are famous for being fighters and play until the last second. Once we got ahead we held on to it like lions. We're going to Madrid to win more games."