D
Darknemo20002
Guest
Motiejunas was better than Lavrinovic and Songaila that year. He got higher numbers than Lavrinovic and Songaila, he had higher efficiency. His d was poor but lavrinovic sucks at defense too. In my opinion the situation here is similar to Kaukanas Slanina situation back then. Motiejunas in friendly games outplayed Lavrinovic yet Lavrinovic was still selected because he is older and Kemzura hoped that he will pley in just like Delininkaitis who looked so awful in preparation games that gecevicius even during those 8 minutes managed to outplay him.
Thats what pisses off. You feel that you were better than certain players, you look at the stat sheets and they too clearly show that you were better, but coach still select other players. Then what the fuck is the use of those preparation games? Why invite all those 19 players if coach already has in mind what 12 will come and performance on the preparation games will have 0 influence on the decision.
Its not great when 20 year old starts giving the requirements but it is not nice when a coach just tells "Fuck those preparation games performances, I will select what I like more anyway." either.
yeah Kurtinaitis requires more from players than Kemzura but he and Pacesas at least knows how to treat young players. You need to demand good game but you also need to show some confidence in them. Benching young players after every single mistake is a very, very stupid thing to do because then you will get same result as Valanciunas vs Tiunisia. Valanciunas was even afraid to hold the ball, not even talking about shooting. He was mentally broken.
How come he played better against Russia? Because Kemzura had no choice. Jonas had a good first quarter but ofcourse was benched regardless and then when he came in the middle of the third he was back to his Tunisia mode - allowed to easy facial dunks for Mazgove and looked broken again. kemzura if he could have done what he usually did this tournament - that is bench Valanciunas and let him rot there in his misery add a few screams in his face about his uselessness in his face for better riddance. The thing is - he could not, Songaila was just substituted and he needed rest and Kavaliauskas was not ready for the game (for some reason he was very slow in this game, maybe some minor but very nagging injury or something). So he was forced to keep Jonas in play and oh the wonder, Valanciunas slowly got his confidence back, had a couple of good plays on D good rebounds, kalnietis hit a couple of 3 and Jonas himself started scoring - the result was our best run in the game until Jonas injury and Kalnietis substitution.
Thats a thing how you need to deal with young players, no it is not a farm of raising young players but at the same time you need to let them feel that the effort is what matters give or take a couple of mistakes. If couch starts benching a player after every single mistake it is the shortest road to breaking a player mentally specially someone as young as 20 year old. Pacesas and Kurtinaitis know that. Kemzura probably knew that too but forgot in his hysterical mood as he felt like his ass is burning after screwing up an Euro and team not showing a good game during preparation during qualification and even in the main event. It was a road to self destruction.
Because Jonas was his best rebounding guy, with all how well Songaila played he could not control the boards and without controlling the boards you cannot launch quick attacks effectively, and without quick attacks you are forces to play positional play and lithuania sucks at positional play. Ironic that despite us having a bunch of veterans all of them feel better at faster play and cannot play in a slow game.
). The thing with such players is that their net value is often equal to zero if not minus in some occasions, because a) most of them don't bother playing defense; b) even if they try to play defense, they can't match big guys impact in this area anyway (due to physical and positional differences).