Serbia President calls out refs for missing crucial violation on Joel Embiid: “Tell us in advance who we’re not allowed to beat”

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic was left unimpressed with the officiating after they missed a potential Joel Embiid travel violation in Thursday's semifinal. Embiid and Team USA crawled down from 17 points to win 95-91. It seemed like the Serbians were on their way to causing an upset, but a remarkable fourth-quarter turnaround changed the game's landscape.

Vucic pointed out the incident regarding Embiid on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday. He issued a strong statement on the same, calling out the referees.

"In which country is it not a traveling violation?" Vucic tweeted.

"P.S. Next time, please tell us in advance who we're not allowed to beat."

(This caption is translated to English as per the editor's understanding. The. the original caption was written in Serbian.)

Team USA was down by 12 points when Joel Embiid scored off that play with a two-handed dunk, trimming the deficit to 59-49. It kept the Americans in the game at a crucial juncture.

Serbia's coaching staff and players demanded the travel violation because Embiid began to move without releasing the ball. It all went down in front of Serbia's bench. The referee's angle may have been blocked because of Jrue Holiday, who was standing in his line of vision.

The Serbians were still comfortably ahead for most of the game after that point, so the ramifications of this missed call may not have had much implication on the eventual result.

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Bogdan Bogdanovic didn't hold back against refs after Joel Embiid and Co. turned the game around

Before Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic shared his opinion on the Joel Embiid missed call, sharpshooting guard Bogdan Bogdanovic called out the referees. Bogdanovic wasn't impressed with the referees' failure to communicate with the Serbians. He also called out the biases of calls, saying:"

We tried to talk to (the officials); they didn't try to talk to us. They just walked away. But it's OK. The USA doesn't need that type of help against us. You know, we didn't have that type of help when they were grabbing us with two hands and all that."

It was a heated game, and Bogdanovic was at the center of it. He got into it with several players from the opposite side, including LeBron James. Bogdanovic was the key architect of Serbia's dominance through the first 30 minutes. He scored 20 points on 8-of-18 shots, including 3 of 10 from deep.

However, a 32-15 quarter that favored the USA took the game away from the Serbians. Joel Embiid scored seven of his 19 points in the fourth quarter. It was his best game of the tournament. Meanwhile, Steph Curry was the best player with 36 points, and LeBron James dropped a 13-point triple-double.