[Semifinals] Game 86/A: Lithuania - Croatia

[Ashtrusis_dantis]

Look at Lithuanian roster - yes, it's close to the best you can get by now, but I think that it's just an indication of the painful process of generations change when your very talented mid- to late- 70s born generation is leaving shoes too big to fill for your current NT players. So this roster has 2 players from NBA (and D-Mo ain't exactly successful over the pond) and among other ten players only Jonas Maciulis plays a valuable role for the top European team with Pocius being non-factor for Madrid and he's on the move from Spanish capital to much less posh Kaunas simply because he ain't good enough for a European powerhouse (just like Seibutis and Gecevicius weren't good enough for Oly). And let's compare it with something like EB-2007. Back then Lithuania had 9 European-based players and let's look where did they came from: fresh from EL triumph with Pao of which he was an important part of Siskauskas represented CSKA, K. Lavrinovic and Kaukenas represented Siena (EL FF caliber team at the time) and Jasaitis was moving from MTA to TAU (D. Lavrinovic's UNICS was also a power to reckon with). First three were among the leading players for European super-clubs. Lithuania of 2007 was lucky to get bronze and, by the way, they eliminated the same Croatia in QFs with +2 difference (which was also better back in the day despite being coached by hysterical idiot Repesa) while now much weakened Lithuania of 2013 will play in finals. If this is not a sign of crap tournament, then I don't know what else would be. It was my intention to choose examples from your own teams of the recent past to show you the fact that current Lith and Cro are very average teams.

Lithuania will play in EB's finals for the first time since 2003 (and maybe with the same opponent). But who's a heir to Saras in this team? Kanietis, right? Who's a heir to Macas in this team? Seibutis, right? Even Maciulis (a player of the type I like very nuch) fails to fill Saulius' shoes.

Wow, what a strikes of stupid troll, tell me, what Lithuanian roster is stornger - this one or the one wich become 3'rd in WC2010?

Or some addition to bullshit about roster - who plays where, who is a roll player and other bla bla. her are 2 rosters OG2000 and EC2013 and teams where players played at that time:

Lithuania OG2000:
Saulius Stombergas – Kinder Bologna
Mindaugas Timinskas – Zalgiris
Eurelijus Zukauskas – Zalgiris
Darius Maskoliunas – Prokom Trefl
Ramunas Siskauskas – Lietuvos Rytas
Darius Songaila – Wake Forest university
Sarunas Jasikevicius – Union Olimpia
Kestutis Marciulionis – University of Delavare
Tomas Masiulis – Zalgiris
Dainius Adomaitis – Anwil Wloclawek
Gintaras Einikis – CSKA
Andrius Giedraitis – Lietuvos Rytas

No NBA players, 2 students, 2 players from polish league (!!!), 5 from Lithuanian clubs and only 2 from top european teams... 3 in the world, almost beat americans...

Lithuania EC2013:
Mantas KALNIETIS Krasnodaro „Lokomotiv-Kuban“ (Rusija)
Tomas DELININKAITIS Čerkasų „Mavpy“ (Ukraina)
Renaldas SEIBUTIS Vilniaus „Lietuvos rytas“
Martynas POCIUS Madrido „Real“ (Ispanija)
Jonas MAČIULIS Atėnų „Panathinaikos“ (Graikija)
Mindaugas KUZMINSKAS Kauno „Žalgiris“
Linas KLEIZA Toronto „Raptors“ (Kanada)
Kšištofas LAVRINOVIČIUS Kauno „Žalgiris“
Darjušas LAVRINOVIČIUS Kauno „Žalgiris“
Donatas MOTIEJŪNAS Hjustono „Rockets“ (JAV)
Jonas VALANČIŪNAS Toronto „Raptors“ (Kanada)
Robertas JAVTOKAS Kauno „Žalgiris“

Maybye you want to compare this roster with Lithuanian roster in EC2009, wich was a disaster for us?
You know nothing about basketball and lost a good time to keep silece.

[Hepcat]

Look at Lithuanian roster - yes, it's close to the best you can get by now, but I think that it's just an indication of the painful process of generations change when your very talented mid- to late- 70s born generation is leaving shoes too big to fill for your current NT players. So this roster has 2 players from NBA (and D-Mo ain't exactly successful over the pond) and among other ten players only Jonas Maciulis plays a valuable role for the top European team with Pocius being non-factor for Madrid and he's on the move from Spanish capital to much less posh Kaunas simply because he ain't good enough for a European powerhouse (just like Seibutis and Gecevicius weren't good enough for Oly). And let's compare it with something like EB-2007. Back then Lithuania had 9 European-based players and let's look where did they came from: fresh from EL triumph with Pao of which he was an important part of Siskauskas represented CSKA, K. Lavrinovic and Kaukenas represented Siena (EL FF caliber team at the time) and Jasaitis was moving from MTA to TAU (D. Lavrinovic's UNICS was also a power to reckon with). First three were among the leading players for European super-clubs. Lithuania of 2007 was lucky to get bronze....

You're overlooking the fact, yes fact, that teams are not just a sum of their parts. A team should be a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. And Lithuanian national team coaches over the years have been remarkably good at building such teams from whatever building blocks happen to be available each year.

For example, I very clearly remember the byline for Team Lithuania in a preview article that either Time or Sports Illustrated ran in 2000 previewing the Sydney Olympics basketball competition. It was "How the mighty have fallen!" Well it turned out that the mighty had not fallen at all, and now several of the players on that team, e.g. Jasikevičius, Songaila, Štombergas, Šiškauskas, have joined the pantheon of Lithuanian basketball legends. And I have no doubt that this current generation of players will harvest at least its share of medals over the next ten years and that some of them will be part of Lithuania's pantheon of basketball legends in twenty.

The proof of the pudding is not on paper; it's on the court. And so far this team has delivered.

[Darknemo2000]

Stats can lie, but not this time. Only Valanciunas (-7) and Motiejunas (-9) have negative -/+ . It wasnt only Maciulis that had shooting exibition Kleiza score 22pts (+24) and Kalnietis 18pts (+15).

Valanciunas had great impact on our defense. His blocks hit Croats very hard, so hard that even when Valanciunas went to the bench they kept on shooting those high-arched twos in the post. If not of that big block party that Val had at the end of the second quarter I don't think we would have had that third quarter run because ever since Croats stopped feeling comfortable with their inside shots.

[macleopard13]

Lithuania will play in EB's finals for the first time since 2003 (and maybe with the same opponent). But who's a heir to Saras in this team? Kanietis, right? Who's a heir to Macas in this team? Seibutis, right? Even Maciulis (a player of the type I like very nuch) fails to fill Saulius' shoes.

Let's be honest: our team isn't very talented. We don't know how to play intelligent basketball anymore, we can't hit miracle shots, and we don't have a stellar passing culture. But we are an athletic, hard-working team that plays excellent defense, and this has been working for us so far.

[Terrorizer]

Terrorizer, you do make an interesting point about individual players' abilities of our current NT and you may as well be right, but:

1) I kinda enjoyed this Eurobasket, even if it happens to be the weakest shit ever. Too bad you didn't.

I also enjoyed some parts of it. But I think that potentially it could be much better. Just look at the play-offs. Even if, for example, EB-2011 in Lithuania also lacked games with outcome decided on the last minute (aside from LTU-MKD QF), yet except Spain no team won against their opponent with the points difference more than +10. And here we have only Spain-France semis and, to a lesser extent, Lithuania-Italy quarterfinals game being able to revive true magic of Eurobasket's play-offs. Some teams were suffering from heavy burden of absences but some others just didn't look like their normal selves in Slovenia. I think it's just a chain of unlucky coincidences and bad chemistry+coaching in many powerhouses camps. 'Small' teams like Finland or Belgium actually deserved respect, it were giants who underperformed on a massive scale.

2) Can you REALLY judge the "strength" of a tournament based on what players play in it? I mean, on one level, sure you can. But your same arguments could be applied to Lithuanian NT in the 2010 World champ, so I'd guess it was a weak-ass championship also? Actually, come to think of it, Eurobasket 2001 was just not of this world, because Lithuanian NT, composed of what we could call "superstars" who almost beat Team USA in the Olympics, was crushed. Or maybe, juuuuust maybe, it's the team that plays in any championship and not the players.

I completely agree with you on almost anything you've said here, especially the part which I bolded. Yet I do see 2010 WC as a semi-'weak-ass championship' also. Most of heavyweights (Greece, France, Spain, Russia, Argentina) were underperforming, the level of competition was very uneven and seeing a team as limited as Turkey in finals was no fun either. After one of my favourite all-world international basketball tournaments which was WC-2006 (Russia didn't even participated in it, mind it) it was a huge letdown for me. Considering Lithuanian NT, I've noticed that it always fares better when it is some kind of underdog. Nobody really saw Lithuanian NT, undergoing major generations change, as a power to reckon with before Sydney Olympics, yet it proved to be the most bright positive surprise of the tournament. Just a year after, these guys were going to Turkey as some kind of favourites and the same players who ere seen as almost useless were viewed as major stars, which was helped by the fact that many of them changed Lithuanian (or even Polish) championship for some Spanish/Italian powerhouses - and they failed massively. In the next Eurobasket expectations were mixed, yes, for sure Lithuania had a good quality in its ranks but most didn't view Lithuania as one of the top favourites to win it all (or even a favourite to finish on podium) - and you did just that. Traditionally successful for Lithuania Olympics aside, the next time your NT were achieveing something really great was in 2010 when many (myself included) weren't predicting even a spot in QFs for Lithuania.

I mean, sure you can judge the strength and the lameness of a championship and, as I've said, you make some interesting points, but in the end - why do that? It just does not look like you are enjoying yourself and that kind of beats the purpose of watching basketball (same applies to madmax, who is, more likely, crazymax!)

Ok, maybe, you have a point. If championship goes not the way I like it (both quality-wise and considering how good are the teams, which I've considered favourites, playing) I kinda start to view it all too rationally, not being able to just dive in that exciting world of this game, thinking something like 'Oh, it could be so much better' instead. Before this championship I was sure that Spain and Greece are the teams with best chances for medals, France can be shaky but its potential is also very high, Italy and Russia are huge guesses but could offer some very positive surprises in spite of all their absences, Germany very well could go into play-offs, Turkey will disintegrate and I also hoped for Macedonia once again shocking the world with collecting some favourites scalps. I was only right about Turkey's disintegration as, sans France (and before the play-offs they were a team really unpleasant to watch, to say the truth), any other team mentioned here disappointed on a major scale. So final results were really illogical and puzzling for me

But even with all this taken into account, I still think that the real level of playing in far too many games of this Eurobasket wasn't that good as it was in some earlier ones. Very often it was too sloppy, especially in offense, and so many favourites struggled with game's organization and team chemistry.

Still, septynix, I want to thank you so much for your polite tone and the fact that you offered very deep and reasonable arguments, some of which I just wasn't even willing to refute because I think exactly the same You know, it's a pleasure for me to have such a kind of basketball discussion. And the fact that you're Lithuanian guy makes it even a more enjoyable option, as numerous Lithuanian users show extreme close-mindedness and bigotry on these boards and I would really hate to think that basketball fans from a country with such a rich basketball history and culture as Lietuva are aggressive boors with herd mentality and tendency to throw personal insults at will. You're just proving with your post that no matter what kind of linguistical or historical barriers separate us, we can find a common ground and unite in love for the beautiful game of basketball (and not only in it).

hepcat, your last post in this thread is exactly what I mentioned earlier. Most of Lithuania's successes of 2000s and 2010s were achieved not due to the fact it was the most talented or spectacular or even super-intellectual with over-sophisticated offense (it wasn't either of these as even in 2003 there were multiple teams better than Lithuania 'on paper', yet Lietuva showed great passing game and had some 'lights-out' snipers in its ranks) but due to the thing that I can't say better than macleopard13:

Let's be honest: our team isn't very talented. We don't know how to play intelligent basketball anymore, we can't hit miracle shots, and we don't have a stellar passing culture. But we are an athletic, hard-working team that plays excellent defense, and this has been working for us so far.

I only will add one aspect which I think is crucial. Recent versions of Lithuanian NT maybe aren't exactly examples of the most coachable teams in existence but they are much more coachable, unified and gutsy than most other European top NTs where battle of egoes rages on and stupidity mixed with 'primadonna mentality' often reigns supreme.

P.S. I want even start to argue with ashtrusis-dansis as 'bazar bitching' isn't my cup of tea but I think that he's overstepping the line of decency here.
'Imbisil', 'so go fuck yourself you rightenous ashole', 'don't show yourself full idiot, ups you already did', 'uneducated imbisil', 'Wow, what a strikes of stupid troll' - no matter, how sensitive are you and how my words were bitter for you, but I never lowered my discussion to this type of ugly personal insults and, hence, such a mean reaction can't be justified. I don't want to call on mods as this is for pussies and I don't want to behave like a 'stukach' but you're abasing not me but yourself with such posts. So, frankly, it's better to stop behaving like that on this international forum as you're really doing a massive disservice for the Lithuanian basketball fans (sub)culture. And your English is beyond terrible