2024 Lithuanian NT

[Straight forward]

Well, NT looked worse than I thought. There's no grip at both ends. Defense is completely loose and offense is too opportunistic. At times the ball movement is nice, but that's all. If Maksvytis thinks he can beat the world with Grigonis being ultimate alpha, our ceiling is low. He is the guy who can get shut down by any more serious team easily. The games has to be more simple. Give Sabonis the ball deeper. Just feed him nearer the basket. Allow Jokubaitis to play pick and rolls. From what I see there's a lot of mess and there's little what's working. Maybe all this would be great idea for club preparation, but now I feel like Italy would cook as ATM. I liked the most how Ulanovas and Sedekerskis, and Butkevicius a bit, looked glue guys. Those seemed to be serious players. All others meh overall and I think Maksvytis yet again prepared NT in a wrong way. Sabonis completely frustrated and I understand why, he gets the ball only by the three point line. Jokubaitis is playing off ball, LOL The best ballhandler and decision maker playing off ball. I see a lot of mess offensively, and no chierarchy. Like all players are set to be decision makers. When Grigonis very likely will be shut down by first serious team pretty much (Italy), we'll be in trouble. Maksvytis doesn't know how to utilize each player individually, doesn't have the sense to how establish optimal hierarchy. He can still make some adjustments, but the game has to be simple and very obvious emphasis has to be made. Now I don't understand what Sabonis is doing at all, like he just used for simple hand offs by the three point line and Jokubaitis is playing off ball. So far it looks really bad. I don't believe in Maksvytis anymore. He just doesn't have it. The same Ulanovas could create much more, but he is left aside too. Lukas is playing as much as Jokubaitis, like current Lukas could carry NT against serious teams. Off course, Maksvytis still can make adjustments, and some players are off shape, but the time is really running towards decisive games and I don't like the game plan at all. Sabonis should be aggressive INSIDE and Jokubaitis has to play with the ball and play pick and roll. We don't see that.

Sabonis being off shape is concerning, but also we have to simplify the game a lot. To me, Sabonis and Jokubaitis are the key of this team, but Maksvytis doesn't understand this so far. I can only hope it's because both are not in optimal shape. If you look at +/-, Jokubaitis has +23 team high (6as in 21min) and Sabonis +20. Grigonis just +11 and Lekavicius just +3.

Grigonis with the ball in his hands is scoring threat and he does it well, but he doesn't create anything for others. Sabonis is not effective by the three point line in set offense in FIBA and that has to be stopped. He should play pick and rolls and go inside and receive the ball for post ups. In the set offense Jokubaitis has to be with the ball and make main decisions and passing. If this won't be established as main principle of the game, we're in trouble. And so far Maksvytis constructed the offense exactly like this. Like pseudo creation of Sabonis by the three point line which only leads to Grigonis shots, that's all and Sabonis himself being off the game scoring wise.

A lot of mess and yet again Maksvytis shows he's not able to make precise decisions how to utilize the talent in optimal way. So far he basically neutralized 2 of 3 best players of this team. Grigonis is there. Sabonis and Jokubaitis neutralized.

[Svajunas]

So it looks like it's mighty hard to defend the paint area from obese mexican slob without the pterodactyl wingspan of JV in it lol... I just wonder how a bit more professional and lean bigmen will do against the all so praised All Star Sabonis when they come up against him lol

Hello there, new washinton wizzards fan?

[madmax]

Hello there, new washinton wizzards fan?

Not a Wizz fan at all, just hoping JV still starts and gets similar numbers to his Grizz days if only to stick it to clueless agents who keep on underrating and underplaying him

[zalias]

jokubaitis has looked really bad so far. non existant defensively but also made some baffling decisions offensively. one play that's stuck in my head is when sabonis passed to wide open jokubaitis at the 3p line with 3 seconds left and instead of taking that shot he passed the ball to tubelis in the post, who was completely out of position. your starting point guard should not be making possesion killing plays consistently.

[Hepcat]

I just wonder how a bit more professional and lean bigmen will do against the all so praised All Star Sabonis when they come up against him lol

Just because you're a Jonas Valančiūnas is no reason to take a cheap shot at Domantas Sabonis. Yeah, yeah, I know certain other posters here do the opposite but as I've said many times there's no excuse for parochialism when it comes to Team Lietuva.

[Hepcat]

Give Sabonis the ball deeper. Just feed him nearer the basket.... Sabonis should be aggressive INSIDE....

Sabonis is not effective by the three point line in set offense in FIBA and that has to be stopped. He should play pick and rolls and go inside and receive the ball for post ups.

That though is what Jonas Valančiūnas has been doing for Team Lietuva. He's been a one man wrecking crew down low on offence for over ten years. I'm not sure that Domantas Sabonis can fill exactly the same niche. They're different players with different skill sets.

That's why I keep repeating that coaches need a diverse tool kit. That way they can take what the opposition is giving them in any specific situation. But this version of Team Lietuva lacks a physically dominant center who can command the paint.

[Hepcat]

Almost a very embarrassing loss indeed today. Rokas Jokubaitis struggled for the second day in a row and the team looks much better with Lukas Lekavičius behind the reins at PG.

[zalias]

its just not the same team without valanciunas. his size and strength is huge in fiba basketball. i also wish sirvydis got to play some more, he has looked really weak defensively, but so has the whole team, i dont understand how maksvtis decided he's the issue.

[Shawshank]

Sabonis and Grigonis leadership in 4 querter saved NT from lose .

Jokubaitis shape is really bad.He don't seem to have confidence after sitting out last 3-4 months on the end of the bench.

Sirvydis looks 2023-2024 how R.Giedraitis looked in 2021-2022 backup SG role in defence unplayable and can't make shots coming cold of the bench.

Lukas is in very good shape, doing same thing what in lkl finals.

Ulanovas silently doing good things on both sides.

NT play play looks really shaky and don't give alot on confidence but hopefully such almost lost to Africa team will be good kick to their ass and team will come together

[Hepcat]

It was the old bugaboo of turnovers that almost cost Lithuania the game. Lithuania had 16, Cote d'Ivoire only 8.

So far after a very limited sample of only two games, the most effective lineup on the court seems to involve these five players - Domantas Sabonis, Edgaras Ulanovas, Arnas Butkevičius, Marius Grigonis and Lukas Lekavičius.



P.S. A word to the wise. Putting the ^ on the "o" of Cote lost me my entire post after the letter "C" twice yesterday. I guess the program here on Interbasket hates the French spelling of "Cote".

[Hepcat]

i also wish sirvydis got to play some more, he has looked really weak defensively, but so has the whole team, i dont understand how maksvtis decided he's the issue.

He's not doing Lithuanian fans any favours though with a PER of -1.0 in an average of 7.3 minutes of play and a -6 when he's been on the court. I thought he might be a good replacement for Ignas Brazdeikis but that's been far from the case to this point.

[Hepcat]

I hope not.

Well the net result of Jonas Valančiūnas not being in Puerto Rico is that Team Lietuva is really missing his ability to dominate the paint on both sides of the court including rim protection on defence. The fact that Lithuania doesn't have a physically dominant center is one of my two main concerns heading into the semis.

The other is guard play. Rokas Jokubaitis has been simply disappointing so far. And Deividas Sirvydis seems to have left his game in Panevėžys. Utility combo guard Tomas Dimša was taken by Coach Maksvytis because he could fill in at PG on an emergency basis and for defensive purposes at critical moments. Meanwhile though he's been needed to play in place of Sirvydis which is reducing the offensive potential of Lithuania's second unit.

So I'm concerned going into the knock out phase. Team Lietuva has some serious problems.

[Svajunas]

Im concerned about HC rotation. Each game we see different lineups. Our one of the best players did not get a proper chance against fucking Ivory Coast, because he made a mistake on defence.
Same with Dimsa/Sirvydis... If you take Sirvydis to the tournament, let him play. He has to get over the bump and be ready for knock out stage. Main players have to play 28-30 mins...

We are going to play against Italy when we are at the lowest.

[Straight forward]

Forum's not OK. Screwed my long post somehow.

To put it short, it's good we survived. Ivory Coast provided good basketball and Italy, PR won't be playing much better than that. Lithuania despite looking rusty, dropping 97ppg. Some players are off a bit, but some exceeding as Ulanovas, Lekavicius. Still think we need best version of Jokubaitis to run at full speed offensively.

We must survive this qualification and with more coherence, Jokubaitis getting in shape and JV coming from the bench instead D-Mo, we could provide very quality offense in Olympics.

It's good that Maksvytis made adjustments that I asked after the first game. We have to play simple basketball. To look for Sabonis deep and run more pick and rolls. We're shooting almost 70% twos, so not gonna get better, but we can shoot threes a bit better than 34,6%.

[Straight forward]

Im concerned about HC rotation. Each game we see different lineups. Our one of the best players did not get a proper chance against fucking Ivory Coast, because he made a mistake on defence.
Same with Dimsa/Sirvydis... If you take Sirvydis to the tournament, let him play. He has to get over the bump and be ready for knock out stage. Main players have to play 28-30 mins...

We are going to play against Italy when we are at the lowest.

I wouldn't overestimate that. I understand Makvytis at this point. Sirvydis was making some harsh mistakes defensively and there's no time for that in qualification. He needed more successful stretches, but it looked like he's always puts himself in worst situations defensively, to give opponents 2+1. That happens. He's better than he shows now, but NT win is the most important. We deliver offensively anyway, other players stood up. If all players would play up to their capabilities, we would be scoring +100 which is pretty nasty.

And contrary think that now we are much more ready against Italy/PR after such game. I feel like we have bigger guts now and with meh offensive we somehow drop 96.5ppg. I doubt Italy can provide better D than IC provided, they were fighting well. Maybe PR can be even bigger pain in the ass at perimeter D, but also probably not. Aside Alavarado who is lock down defenders, I think others are not special at all. The key will be not to let Alvarado to drop +30 on us, but first Italy.