2023 Lithuanian NT

[Shawshank2]

NT of missing players vs current NT - which is superior?

Lekavicius, Grigonis
R. Giedraitis, Rubstavicius
Ulanovas, Butkevicius
Kulboka, Buzelis
Sabonis, Gudaitis

Damn, it's pretty close...

5 men lineup Sabonis,Ulanovas,Butkevicius,R.Giedraitis,Grigonis is better than any 5 men lineup real NT 2023 can put.

Would have way better lineup to finish games too and better defensive team

I would bet that holiday team would go further in fiba tournament

 

[zalias2]

.

Heading forward we desperately need defensive 5. Hopefully Tubelis/Krivas can offer something soon. I see Tubelis making 2024 as third center.

tubelis biggest problem is his defense, it might look a little bit better in europe but its the reason why didnt get drafted

 

[Shawshank2]

Greece beat Slovenia with Doncic in Liubliana


Itoudis squad even without Giannis looks like seriuos,deep NT from highlights


Walkup is nice fit for them,maturity of playmaking.defence,physicality just world class level.Our NT also need such type guard badly,especially for defence.


Thomas played for Zalgiris 3 seasons Lithuanians didnt even considered naturalise him. Walkup played for Olympiakos 2 seasons and already is in NT roster big diffrence in approach.

 

[Hepcat2]

Thomas played for Zalgiris 3 seasons Lithuanians didnt even considered naturalise him. Walkup played for Olympiakos 2 seasons and already is in NT roster big diffrence in approach.

I much prefer the LKF's reluctance to naturalize. These nationality change operations never seem to work long. Can anyone cite even one example of a "naturalized" player remaining as his newly gotten nationality?

 

[LuDux2]

And I'm reluctant to become president of foreign country that requires presidents to be born in that country

 

[Dirtyh2]

I much prefer the LKF's reluctance to naturalize. These nationality change operations never seem to work long. Can anyone cite even one example of a "naturalized" player remaining as his newly gotten nationality?

Jamar Wilson. But he wasn't naturalized in that way, he got his passport after few years because he built his life in Finland anyway.

 

[Straight forward2]

I will also quote Maciulis from 15min.lt interview:

Who can play defence from our players? Dovydas Giedraitis is one of the best on the perimeter. Tadas Sedekerskis defends well one-on-one, but he is a little lost in team rotations. The national team will definitely need to work on defense and simplify it. If the centers get tired and start to defend lower flat defense, then we're in trouble."

https://www.15min.lt/24sek/naujiena/lietuva/jonas-maciulis-apie-susiguzusi-jaunima-lkf-pagerbima-ir -d-sirvydzios-vieta-dviliztuke-875-2091758?utm_medium=copied​

Maciuli sees situation pretty well.

 

[Shawshank2]

Thats main reason why our NT couldnt make no stops when it was critical time to do so.

1 good defender in main 9 player rotation is not even close being enough.

Who cares 2020s NT they have more tallent offensively compare to 2010s NT if they cant make no stops even vs average NTs players?


That was the story of LTU NT last 8 years

 

[Straight forward2]

When I said somewhere in 2016-2017 that JV becoming a problem for the NT I received a lot of hate here, but I saw it already then. JV is a great guy and very good offensive traditional center, but in this era it's extremely difficult to win something with such kind of center. Maybe if you have incredibly talented roster then you simply outscore the opponents and care little about defense, but that probably works better in wide NBA court than FIBA. I hope Maksvytis will have balls to go with Sedekerskis at 5 closing games.

 

[Hepcat2]

Who can play defence from our players? Dovydas Giedraitis is one of the best on the perimeter. Tadas Sedekerskis defends well one-on-one, but he is a little lost in team rotations.

With Georgia scoring 102 points including 66 in the second half and a whopping 37 in the fourth quarter, looking for "defensive standouts" is simply clutching at straws.

The national team will definitely need to work on defense and simplify it.

I agree. K.I.S.S. Avoiding complex schemes is always the key for national teams since there's less than a month of preparation time.

We'll see if Coach Maksvytis will have implemented sound, basic defensive schemes for the players in today's game against Finland. Today's team is actually the one I now suspect will be the final one for the World Championship.

 

[Hepcat2]

When I said somewhere in 2016-2017 that JV becoming a problem for the NT I received a lot of hate here....

You received no "hate". You just had Madmax disagreeing with you. He may of course have accused you of being a Valančiūnas hater, but Max has always been all about Valančiūnas so that was to be expected.

 

[Straight forward2]

LTU vs Markkanen...He violates our weak transition defense.

 

[Straight forward2]

Again and again we're overfeeding JV which means we stop playing normal basketball. We feed JV like he's superstar, but then NT actually plays against real superstar and you see the difference. It's day and night. We should stop playing that silly - feed JV no matter what - basketball. It going no-where. Sedekerskis today looks pretty well. Kuzminskas still has athleticism and he should be more aggressive, as well as Iggy have to be more aggressive, but that will come He will take the most shots again in the tournament most likely

Anyway, Markannen at completely other level. True superstar of FIBA. And an NBA All Star.

 

[Straight forward2]

Imagine if Buzelis reaches Markannen level...we need that kind of breed.

 

[Shawshank2]

Today Tarolis and Sirvydis looked tottaly lost and coached didnt even put them in 2 half .I would send Kariniauskas near them on bench too


Other 9 players is our main playoofs type game rotation

Jokubaitis,Dimsa,Normantas,Brazdeikis,Kuzminskas,B endzius,Sedekerskis,Dmo,Jonas



ps. Something is about Normantas he plays in hostile envirenment way better than at home.It happend in full packed zalgiris arena,it happend in France and it happend Finland

Dude is with balls and character.He will help in those emotional fiba battles. Made 2 game tieing free throws with tottaly calm eyes and zero fear.



I looked at Greece first half, they are looking better and more convincing than LTU at this stage of preparation.

 

[Straight forward2]

I knew that once Kariniauskas will face at least moderately serious team it's gonna look ugly...He's trash, the scrub and it''s time to realize, actually everyone knew it since the Rytas' season. I will continue to repeat that Maksvytis made another idiotic move by laying red carpet for him. It's another nonsense move from Maksvytis (previously it was letting go Sedekerskis, not even inviting Sirvydis last summer, taking Zemaitis to EB, taking Cizauskas to windows from "perifery"). I'm really mad that otherwise decent/solid coach who shows some signs of becoming long term option still makes such silly moves, still can't get away from provincial mediocre coach habits. Marciulionis had to be in the camp, no question, damn take it even Velicka or Bickauskis and he will be better. Even today he would sharpen up things and make some sharp dishes. Without Jokubaitis on the court we barely can play basketball.

Benzius sucked today. Dude, you have to make an open three, specially now being a vet. That's all you do. Maybe Kazys wanted to experiment, but everyone knows that if Benzius is cold he's not gonna make shots later. Kazys overused him badly. Why Bendzius played almost 18min while sucking all game and Sedekerskis only 16 minutes while playing way better? Again, a smell of mediocre coach mind. Urbonas and such territory.

Normantas, Dimsa, Kariniauskas provided 0 assists...zero...

Overall, I have sense that there's little improvement by Kazys. It was obvious we'll have issues with facilitation and aggression from perimeter once Lekavicius and Grigonis declined, but Maksvytis answer was asbolute scrub from Romania Kariniauskas...That to me is a clear sign that we are rolling with still mediocre coach. He mishandles the roster again. Even cutting Jogela and keeping Kariniauskas is nothing short but insanity. It's players from completely different tiers, not even caring about their different positions.

I think we should take injured Tubelis to the WC. It's obvious we getting absolute zero from Maldunas/Tarolis.

 

[Shawshank2]

I think u should stop talking about 10-12th players all time .Thats empty talks that means nothing,who will be those tourists


First 3 games is done for those players. Now is top 9 players time all coaches attention will be on them



Bendzius was good in defence today,its sounds funny but he really was.Like Adomaitis said he is street smart dude,he cant jump,barely can run but knows where to put his body,today i saw that

Bendzius/Sedekerskis did way better job today than versus Shengelia. Markanen shooted under 50% defenders did their job what is possible to do with fiba superstar thats shoots 20+ shots.



Lineup in which Lithuania made comeback was Dmo,Bendzius,Kuzminskas,Normantas/Dimsa Jokubaitis

All of them played atleast ok,some of them very well.

That by far best lineup if talking about basketball iq players and dont f*** up in defensive rotations and Finland had problems scoring.Didnt get no easy looks in that streach.

 

[Straight forward2]

I think u should stop talking about 10-12th players all time .Thats empty talks that means nothing,who will be those tourist


First 3 games is done for those players. Now is top 9 players time all coaches attention will be on them

Who's gonna dish the ball when Jokubaitis will be resting? It's obvious we're going down without him on the court. We will live and die with his presence basically. To me it seemed that Marciulionis at the very least deserved a chance in the main camp. With all respect to Dimsa, Margiris, D. Giedraitis...They can't facilitate. My money is on Dimsa, once he'll get in shape as he had some minor injuries, but I doubt we'll survive those stretches...We will be going down against serious teams. So who from main rotation guys will substitute Jokubaitis?

Again, IDK about this summer, but I see the only TRUE FACILITATOR being NT borderliner who soon can becoming real NT rotation player. The fact Maksvytis didn't show any wish to even test him says a lot about how he handles LTU basketball. Short sighted, mediocre mind decisions.

And basketball is too static again, we force feed JV all the time and the offense looks static. We have no fast brakes. Last year we at least had enough of offense to compete with best NTs. If this NT had legitimate back up PG and the center who can play D I would see some hope to our NT to make noise in WC. Now I don't see how it can happen. Probably we'll need some sort of magical offensive game to survive. The way NT plays I am not even sure we truly gonna handle Montenegro.

 

[Shawshank2]

Lithuania had same problems last 15 years.Nothing new one main pg plays 34min and other 6 minutes changing person every tournament.


In time i was writting about Bendzius good defence Maskvytis also saw same thing and said to media people

 

[Straight forward2]

Lithuania had same problems last 15 years.Nothing new one main pg plays 34min and other 6 minutes changing person every tournament.

It will change soon. For the first time we'll have 2 legitimate high level creative PGs. Jokubaitis starter, Marciulionis - back up. Augustas had to be in the main camp.