[Quarter Finals] Game 81/A: Lithuania - Italy

[Levenspiel]

19-Sep-2013
21:00 CET

Italy is back on medal contending stage after a 10-year drought, and Lithuania is probably chasing their third final appearance after independence... even if Liths seems like a favorite, both teams had ups-and-down during the course of tournament, and obviously anything might happen... Please share your opinion...

[Toxicity]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypvX5xD0klM

[Mindozas]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypvX5xD0klM

You are a cruel person... Screw you I was thinking to go to bed and watch that new horror flick "Conjuring", but I guess after seein' this, it'll be enough horror for me this night Arguably the biggest loss in Lithuanian NT history, the Olympic gold was close as never. None win could match the bitterness of it

[Lietuvis]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypvX5xD0klM

Yep fully agree and remember this day very well. I was somewhere near Varena watching this game in a sodybe ready for the victory. It was not to be and I was so pissed off instead of drinking the night away and celebrating I went straight to bed....

[macleopard13]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypvX5xD0klM

I didn't watch the game (or the tournament, for that matter), but I'm guessing poor perimeter defense is what did Lithuania in?

We have decent chances to win this game, but we have to concentrate, execute offensively, play excellent defense and not make too many mistakes. We cannot underestimate this team - we must give our 100% effort.

[Shawshank]

if we gonna be able to hold italians from feeling their shot we gonna have good chances.But if in some moment datome,gentile,belineleli will get hot we gonna be in truoble.When they feel shot they are making crazy shots that is well defended...Ofcours main thing is preprare mentally for this game.I agree its better play italy instead of spain,but italys game plan not very suits our team.As always 1/4 will be nerve war...

[madmax]

I didn't watch the game (or the tournament, for that matter), but I'm guessing poor perimeter defense is what did Lithuania in?

We have decent chances to win this game, but we have to concentrate, execute offensively, play excellent defense and not make too many mistakes. We cannot underestimate this team - we must give our 100% effort.

we had Sireika as our head coach for that tournament - of course it did
god bless him - Antanas was a great offensive coach and we won EC 2003 with him, but he had no clue how to defend and that cost us that 2004 OF semifinal. I expect us to win this time though, as I don't think our italian friends will be allowed to feel comfortable on the perimeter anymore. But you never know with these uber talented shooters like Aradori and Gentile, they might as well go unconscious again Let's hope for a cracking game

[arturcia]

for some reason I feel that the Italians once again will celebrate the victory. their style of play is very inconvenient for us. those crazy 3pt shots and fast pace is something we can't handle. we can use the fact that their front line is relatively weaker, but as this championship has already shown our big guys are not always able to exploit their advantage. therefore chance to win will depend on whether we will be able to stop Italian guards and exploit all opportunities under the basket (first task - get Cusin in to foul trouble).

[Ashtrusis_dantis]

Key to victory will be our perimeter defense, our guards need to forget about helping our bigs (i still can't understand why our guards are regularly running to basket, our bigs must solve their problems themself) stay with their players for all time, go true screens and so on. If we will do that, we will be ok on offense.

[Darknemo2000]

A lot will depend on lithaunian guards defense. Because italians do not cut that much under the basket, our guards wont get much help from our bigs - iitalians small lineup will be fully their responsibility. We will see how they will do.

[Ayrfon]

i really love the way Italians play and i think they will be one of the best teams next year with Gallo, Bargnani etc
of course, this will almost be a homecourt for Italy, so maybe that can help them...but at the moment think that LTU just has too many big guys for them to handle...

[Picek]

to be honest I expect Italy to win this one although they probably aren't a favorite before the game starts..
they have showed more on this championship then Lithuania did so far..
ofcourse that doesn't neccessarily mean a thing here, but win yesterday (tanked by the floppers or not) should do wonders to boost their morale and it should make them feel really relaxed coming into this game against Lithuania..
when they are relaxed their shots are falling..
and they have such a big advantage in the back court over Lithuania that it definitely won't be easy for Kalnietis, Pocius and co. to stop them..
and if their bigs will help out, well Datome is then doing wonders to exploit any free space given.
it should be a fun game to watch though..

[Straight forward]

We also had Italians in 8finals in WC 2006, it was the first tournament of Belinelli playing for Italy. We grabbed a hard win back than. It's becoming a tradition here.

Personally I think we should play the same basketball as we did against France. To run transition basketball as much as we can. We are at another level offensively when we feel that freedom. But since Italians also likes fast tempo I have a feeling Kazlauskas will try to slow down the tempo of this game and we'll have another evening of people daying in Lithuania (there was literally a case actually) - very clumsy and close till the end. If we will shamelessly try to use our advantage of frontcourt again, we might not even have a chance in ths game as our offense freezes for too long and the game appears to be too readable.

A lot will depend on our small guys and small forwards this time - how they will stop Belinelli, Aradori, Gentile. If they will give a decent first barricade of individual defence, it will be easier for the bigs to help them.

PS: To be honest, Italians look two times better prapared mentally and way freshier. I still feel like this Lithuanian team plays as they would be North Korea - scared and too much controlled. We don't have that "killing instict" we had in 2010 and Italians so far have...

[Dreamcatcher]

We must wait 4 days for this game and then all the remaining games in a row if loose the first one or 3 games in 4 days if win the first one which is against Italy...

[pimpekaustas]

bosnia should have been on lithuanian place if it were justice, so italy will win easily