2023 Lithuanian NT

[fasoulaki]

1994 - Failed to qualify for World Cup.

1998 - Lost in QF and finished in 7th.

2002 - Failed to qualify for World Cup.

2006 - Lost in QF and finished in 7th.

2010 - Bronze

2014 - Lost in SF and finished in 4th.

2019 - Qualified for second round but failed to make the QFs and finished in 9th.

2023 - Qualified for second round.

Team Lietuva has therefore advanced to at least the second round in all six of the World Cups in which it has participated.

Man!!!! Thanks a lot for your effort!

[Hepcat]

From today's new Power Ranking on the FIBA site:

#9 Lithuania +4

The defense will be the key for this Lithuania squad - just make sure to check out the crossmatches when Tadas Sedekerskis guards the "five" man, and Jonas Valanciunas takes the worst shooter on the opponents' team and just plays a basketball version of a sweeper, protecting the rim, protecting the paint, taking maximum advantage of the "no defensive three seconds" scheme in our events. Masterful coaching by Kazys Maksvytis so far!

:

The defensive scheme that Coach Maksvytis has set up makes sense to me. If a defender is allowed to stalk the paint and plant himself firmly by the basket in FIBA ball, don't be too shy to exploit the provision. While keeping Jonas Valančiūnas down low might(?) result in his individual +/- numbers looking bad, if it's making the other players' defensive assignments less taxing and thus keeping them fresher and with less fouls it can still be a winning scheme over forty minutes. After all it's the team's +/- at the end of the game that matters. We'll see over the next two games.

[Hepcat]

Incidentally, on what Lithuanian TV channel will tomorrow;s game between Greece and Lithuania be telecast?

[Svajunas]

Try go3. Thats internet tv. 5 eur/month for sports package and you will see all games in Lithuanian.

Otherwise I think tv3 broadcasts it.

[fasoulaki]

So guys I wish you all the best. May all players stay healthy and may the worst team win!

[Hepcat]

So the Greek team's strategy seems to be raining down three pointers. Four in a row midway through the first quarter brought Greece back from a 9-2 deficit.

[Hepcat]

What the hell? The Greeks are dominating the boards!

[Hepcat]

Greece's uninterrupted string of four three pointers in a row beginning with 5:20 to play in the first quarter are the difference.And of course Lithuania turned the ball over seven times in the first half versus two steals while Greece turned the ball over only four times versus three steals.

[Hepcat]

The Greeks have taken down 9 out of 24 boards below Lithuania's basket! What the hell?!

[fasoulaki]

Congrutalations well deserved victory. Nice gameplan. A lot of patience. And high quality players with superb basketball talent.

[Hepcat]

Ultimately the deciding factor was that Lithuania shot an incredible 62% from the field while Greece shot only 36%. After the run of four three pointers in a row starting midway through the first quarter, the Greeks weren't getting their shots to fall. I'd need to study the game more closely now to determine whether Lithuania was doing something on defence to cause the Greeks so much shooting trouble.

[fasoulaki]

Ultimately the deciding factor was that Lithuania shot an incredible 62% from the field while Greece shot only 36%. After the run of four three pointers in a row starting midway through the first quarter, the Greeks weren't getting their shots to fall. I'd need to study the game more closely now to determine whether Lithuania was doing something on defence to cause so much trouble for the shooting of the Greeks.

No this is our usual shooting performance. At some point it had to come back to normal.

[Straight forward]

Good win at the end. After a long time we are among top 8 teams. The last time it happened it was 2015. Nightmare stretch for LTU basketball, but seems like slowly good things are coming home. Australia is out, France is out. It's not good news when we speak about fighting for direct Olympic ticket, but good news that we have a team which has some realistic chances to fight for it.

(those who want only positive and want only celebrate, I suggest to ignore the continuation)

Despite huge win in the second half, I'm more pissed with this game than satisfied. I kept silent yesterday and so on, but when I saw the game GRE vs NZE I knew that we are way better than this incredibly limited Geek team. Unfortunately we again took the pressure on us and we lost the mental battle in the first half. We couldn't play aggressively, we hesitated, our offense was static and our body language was anxious, we were bad with timing, we were nervous. But most importantly I couldn't believe my eyes seeing how Walkup takes one open shot after another attacking JV. This is nothing less but incredible! I don't see any other team in the world which allows such thing. Taking one open shot after another and JV just sits his ass down low and doesn't move. We play 4 vs 5 defensively literally. If I'm not mistaken first 10 points was scored all attacking JV. In 2016 Mills and Aussies went nuts attacking JV in pick and roll and Aussies swept us. In 2017 again we were literally killed in p'n'r situations and Sloukas was the hero who took most of it. In 2019 Aussies Mills drained game winner on JV and French De Collo did the same. In 2022 Maksvytis unleashes JV for first minutes against Spain in OT and that 2 minutes stretch basically cost us a game. Now I couldn't believe that absolute offensiveless scrubs like Walkup and Lorentzakis turning into scoring beasts against us. It nearly cost us a game. We were close to collapse mentally during that stretch and if other Greeks like Papanikolou drained few more threes we could easily be completely demoralized. I couldn't believe that Valanciunas yet again sinking us for another tournament. But thanks god Greeks were too weak and we were too good despite JV. We are playing well despite him dragging us down relentlessly in this tournament. We literally trying to survive 4 vs 5 defensively with him. And if not huge Jokubaitis again, Brazdeikis again, and Bendzius as an X factor, JV would sink us down yet again. He's slow us fuck, he doesn't even rebound the ball as well as previously, he still sucks with double team, he plays zero defense, he doesn't move offensively without the ball. I am literally convinced that we are playing better without him. D-Mo moves without the ball better, passes the ball better, plays better defense. I'm certain that Jokubaitis would dish more assists and score more points sharing starting minutes with D-Mo. JV ATM is complete cancer for the team, for any team. He still scored some and he can do it, but I claim that it's complete insanity to continue the gamble when we no DEFENCE at all with him...Literally. This has to stop. It's insanity and it has to be addressed openly. He either has to retire after this tournament or to become 5-10 minutes player. You can't fucking allow Walkup to score 15pts and Lorenzakis 15pts in some freaking 15minutes and to pretend that shit is possible against any other team than Lithuania in the world and that you can justify that. This is madness. You can't play basketball today simply allowing open shot after open shot. It's suicide. If not this limited Greek team, we would had been punished again (easily). We are not going anywhere with this. JV should be left aside and forgotten as the biggest mis-understanding in LTU basketball. Very very young and agile JV was still useful for LTU NT till 2015. Later it turned out to be a nightmare. Everyone knows that JV is contra-productive player. In NBA everyone knows it. He will score some, but he will get even more at the defensive end. That's why he's changing the teams constantly now and Pels looked for a trade, but couldn't get anything. The dude is done. He caused a lot of bad things for LTU baskebtall, we became absolute old school and province of BB for 8 years and JV is the main reason why.

This victory came because Lithuania finally established two strong legitimate GUARDS. End of the story.

[Shawshank]

This is by far best team chemistry any our NT had since 2010. Players is fighting,scrapping for each other

My god seeing how those Dimsa,Normantas,Sedekerkis,Jokubaitis is fighting over screens is what NT didnt have with those Lekavicius,Giedraitis type weak defenders


Our bench 2nd game push lead from+8 to like +16 or +18,i didnt see coming such bench production from these players just wow

Freaking Kariniauskas was +16 in todays game

Lineup Kariniauskas,Dimsa,Kuzminskas,Bendzius,Motiejunas literally made most critical run on Greece in 1/8 playoofs type game,that sounds like anecdote and makes no sense


I have feeling this team have sport gods on their side .There is simply no logic explanation for 15/23 shooting today from long range

.This team literally will have real shot winning 1/4 game

Valanciunas and Motiejunas changing each other and never plays together.

Coaches should have to do same thing with Jonas and Domas.Then we look as team way better and way less predictable

[Straight forward]

That's what Grizz community members were writing about JV when he was still dropping 17ppg for them in the NBA...

First of all, the Grizzlies are marginally better with Valanciunas off the court. As opposed to his last two seasons in Grind City, JV has a negative point differential, meaning the team performs better when the Lithuanian is off the court. This is not the case for all three of the Grizzlies’ core starters this season.

What’s more, his game is the statistical equivalent of empty calories. JV’s total points + rebounds has almost no correlation to the Grizzlies’ margin of victory, while Valanciunas’ +/- is actually negatively correlated to the team’s margin of victory. The best example of this was Memphis’ 49-point victory over the Houston Rockets, in which Valanciunas somehow finished -1 despite his team winning by nearly 50 points. That shouldn’t be possible.

http://www.backsportspage.com/the-grizzlies-jonas-valanciunas-fallacy/

It turning out to be really ugly. In 2022 JV was most attacked player of entire EB. No-one was probably close. Tonight we were really risking to lose against inferior opponent because of him. The sooner we get rid of the turtle (Raptors fans nickname) and start playing at least some soft of defense from 5 (like with even freakin' D-Mo who is really bad defender we are looking better...how about that?) and play some defense from 5, the sooner we will put our selves in completely different situation.

You wanna know why our bench is playing well? Think again...

LTU would do itself a favor sending Sabonis/Gudaitis or Sabonis/D-mo or Sabonis/Tubelis to Olympics. With all seriousness.