Is Lithuania now the favorite to win the FIBA World Cup in Manila, Philippines?
Lithuania made their first 9 threes, led 52-31 in the first half, gained 18 offensive rebounds, and were clearly the bigger and better team while beating USA 110-104 to add to victories over USA in 1998 and 2004. Lithuania’s bigs Jonas Valanciunas and Donatas Motiejunas pushed around the smaller and thinner Americans, dominated the glass and drew fouls. While Anthony Edwards scored 35 points for USA, Lithuania had 8 players with more than 9 points.
“Lithuania is a brilliant basketball team, they move, they shoot, they cut hard, they’re really well coached,” said USA coach Steve Kerr after the game. “They punched us in the mouth. We were on our heels the whole first half. They were carving us up. We definitely had some miscommunications. They made several tough off-balance threes that allowed them to stay ahead. We’ll learn from this. We have a great tape to watch.”
Roaring back after half-time, USA pressured Lithuania into rushing shots and held them to two points during a 5-minute spell of the third quarter.
But Lithuania held onto narrow leads by hitting big shots at key junctures and exploiting mismatches.
“Great basketball game,” added Kerr. “I love the way our guys fought back, played much better in the second half, competed like crazy, gave it a really good run, but it wasn’t enough. It’s a great game for us to experience. This is FIBA. There are great teams that have continuity, that understand what they are doing, they execute. I thought Lithuania was brilliant tonight, they deserved to win.”
“They beat us fair and square,” said Edwards, praising “number 22” (Eimantas Bendzius) of Lithuania for hitting big threes falling out of bounds in the fourth quarter. “Luckily we get to play again, that’s all I’m thinking about.”
In the quarter-finals, Lithuania will play Serbia and then USA faces Italy on Tuesday night at the Mall of Asia Arena in Manila. Wednesday’s quarters at the same venue feature Germany versus Latvia followed by Canada versus Slovenia.
“We need to save our emotions and our effort for the next game. Just in two days, we’re starting the playoffs. Congratulations to my players, but we need to have short memory to prepare for the second game,” said Lithuania coach Kazys Maksvytis.
Playing in their first FIBA World Cup, some USA players often seemed more focussed on questionable refereeing than their own assignments.
“The early fouls (on Jaren Jackson) changed the game for sure. He’s got to improve with that and he knows that,” said Kerr. “FIBA is different from the NBA. We talk about it every day. Our guys have to feel how good these teams are. I hate losing. But for us to get better, we needed to respond the way we did. The next game, we need to start the way we did in the second half. We can’t ease into the game at all.”
Lithuania, meanwhile, will need to continue their hot shooting and hope that their bigs can stay out of foul trouble. If they can do that, they’ll likely meet USA again in the final on Sunday night in Manila.
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