[DAY 3] Group B: Lithuania vs. Nigeria

[GustavoGanso]

certainly Hugo Chavez won't let Lithuanian delegation leave Venezuela so soon.

[stojanov8]

afrika beat you ,hahaa1! you losers ,i tell you ,go back to balt sea ,hide ! you not respekt ,Venezuela , treat bad .Porto Riko show you respekt!!

Go Porto Riko and Makedonija!!

[Jokinen]

That's entirely incorrect. Most Lithuanian fans are incensed that their team didn't just go out and beat a team that hadn't yet made any kind of a mark on the basketball world. Most Lithuanian fans think the Lithuanian team was more than a touch complacent entering the game.

I´m particulary speaking about the last 30 secs. BTW, don´t feel offended, i´m not trying to offend anybody, but I was watching the game, and it was surprising not try to steal the ball or make a foul. Really not what i was expecting

[Mindozas]

I can´t understand most of lithuanian fans beeing ok with not trying to win the game... its like... "well, we are loosing by 6 but i´m ok with that, we are still #1 in the group so i´m not trying to win this thing" WTF

There´s no shame on loosing a game cause the other team was better than you, but its embarrasing not trying to win till the end.

Try to put some sense and logic and you'll get it. Nobody is ok with a loss, but it's better to have smth (1st place) than go for a desperate win (we were losing -6 with only 20+ s till the end, not some -2) and risk to lose everything (1st place and a game)

[Hepcat]

I can´t understand most of lithuanian fans beeing ok with not trying to win the game....

That's entirely incorrect. Most Lithuanian fans are incensed that their team didn't just go out and beat a team that hadn't yet made any kind of a mark on the basketball world. Most Lithuanian fans think the Lithuanian team was more than a touch complacent entering the game.

[Jokinen]

I can´t understand most of lithuanian fans beeing ok with not trying to win the game... its like... "well, we are loosing by 6 but i´m ok with that, we are still #1 in the group so i´m not trying to win this thing" WTF

There´s no shame on loosing a game cause the other team was better than you, but its embarrasing not trying to win till the end.

[kestiz]

Lithuania probably played as bad as they can (except Kleiza, he is doing everything so well so far I hope it stays that way) if we play like this against puerto rico... another upset for the fans I guess.

While Nigeria played crazy good, they landed CRAZY shoots and were so motivated. From this game alone I can tell that Jonas V will have a hard time in the NBA untill he puts some muscle power, he cant fight with atletic teams like Nigeria.

I dont think that this game was given and I dont think that Lithuania wanted to loose. Its just that our team still lacks consistency in every way. Kalnietis played his worst game ever, so many mystakes and missed wide-open shoots its crazy. Knowing that Lithuania can play that bad I feel scared now that we wont get into the olympics.

[Gytaz]

Liths deliberatly chose not to fault and not to try to steel the win but to make Nigeria going through with hosts failing to make it to the play-offs. Well, I doesn't approve this kind of tactics - I think, that you must fight from the first second of the game to the last one and not to think about making some revenge on unlikable teams with such unpleasant moves. It's quite a shameful behaviour and, you know, often it pay offs in quite a painful way - well, Greeks can tell you some stories from their recent past about that.

Come on, have you read this thread? It wasn't a revenge on Venezuela, they just didn't want to risk losing the first place in the group.

[Ashtrusis_dantis]

Everyone who is writing about given game knows nothing about basketball. Nigeria was shouting so crazy shots i haven't seen for a long time, they came to die or win this game, and our players after victory against Venesuela started to think they are better when they trully are, but shots were not falling for us and game stucked. For me it's a question how Venesuela won against so atletic team. I looked at a list of Nigeria's team and was very suprised how many players from good teams they have. This team can be dangerous to anyone.

[Olympiacos]

Examples of Šaras' mean and slimy behaviour?

I think he means his antics with always complaining to the refs.

[Hepcat]

Saras (who behaved like a scum once again but that's not a surprse for anyone - I just remember Saulius who was such a gentleman on court and Saras in contrast was persistently so slimy and mean personality-wise)....

Examples of Šaras' mean and slimy behaviour?

[Terrorizer]

Well, Lithuania would be the most hated team in Venezuela for quite a some time, that's for sure. And Venezuelans have some reasons: Kemzura's time-out on the last seconds was scoffing and embarrassing (though it doesn't justify the primadonna-like foolish behaviour of both Musselman and Vazquez) and now Liths deliberatly chose not to fault and not to try to steel the win but to make Nigeria going through with hosts failing to make it to the play-offs. Well, I doesn't approve this kind of tactics - I think, that you must fight from the first second of the game to the last one and not to think about making some revenge on unlikable teams with such unpleasant moves. It's quite a shameful behaviour and, you know, often it pay offs in quite a painful way - well, Greeks can tell you some stories from their recent past about that.
Lihuania played bad with only Kleiza, Pocius and Saras (who behaved like a scum once again but that's not a surprse for anyone - I just remember Saulius who was such a gentleman on court and Saras in contrast was persistently so slimy and mean personality-wise) being consistently good and Valanciunas once again proving that he is still very raw and need some time to fully realize his enormous potential - he ain't ready yet for the role of the leader in the national team.
And Nigeria - well, I have some trust on them and they proved me right. They have a very good team from the personal strengths viewpoint. And today they proved that they can live up to their potential.
Compared to Angola, they are far superior if we're talking about talent involved. Even aside from Al-Farouq Amine Nigeria has his brother Alade, Derrick Obasohan, Tony Skinn, Ikene Ebekwe and Koko Archibong who are all playing valuable roles in solid European championships. From the current Angolan squad only Cipriano and Morais in ther prime are capable of doing so and that's still a big question mark. To tell you the truth, there are some West African teams which are clearly superior to the Angolan NT by their individual talents. But the main reason of Angola's dominance in Africa in 2000s and some very decent results internationally (including some upsets against elite Euro opponents) was never the individual talent of its players. They were always being pretty mediocre in this department. But their main strength is the clever organization of the game (notion almost extraterrestrial to all of the much more talented African teams), teamwork, good control of the game tempo and style, variative playing style and attention to tactical nuances. And, you know, I love this approach and I love Angola NT. They are doing very important thing for African basketball making it much less chaotic and run-n-gun style based proving that even without flashy Euro- or NBA-based stars but with some clever game instead African team is capable of doing very good things internationally. So I hope that they won't struggle after some obviously needed (having in mind the age of their leaders) refreshment of team's core and will continue to positively surprise us with their results. And also I hope that Angolan example would motivate other strong African team (like Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoires and so on) to put some extra-attention to the game organization and basketball tactics. I really want African teams to become really competitive on the highest levle - talent is already there, they just need to pay attention to the fundamenal notion of intellect in bball.

[Gytaz]

How was the right to organize the tournament "stolen"? Doesn't it go to the high bidder?

No. They do the voting thing. But in Lithuania people think that it was given to Venezuela because of strained relations between FIBA Europe and FIBA, just to show the Europeans who's boss, as everyone thinks that hosting it in Europe was a logical thing to do, because the Olympics are held here and Lithuania was better prepared. I know that many people from other countries disagree with such view.

Huh?! The Venezuelan team should be barred by FIBA from international competitions for a few years if that's the case.

Well, it wasn't the way you're probably imagining it. There was some military parade in Venezuela, so while preparing for it a column of Venezuelan tanks happened to be just outside the arena, where our team was training, and somehow managed to fill it with smoke (unintentionally, I hope).

[J-Mart]

Anyway, this is kind of a pay-back for the (in our perspective) stolen right to organize this tournament, tanks interrupting our team's training and the way Musselman and Vasquez acted after the last game.

I just hope Hugo doesn't decide to do anything drastic.

stolen??
it was about time latinamerica host something.

[Psofimis]

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Venezuela was clearly the best of three...