Continuing a successful start of EuroBasket, Lithuania labored a victory against the strong Turkish team. The hosts of the tournament defeated the runners-up of last year’s World Championship 75-68 (19-17, 13-18, 19-14, 24-19) to join Spain at the top of Group A with a 3-0 record.
The game see-sawed forth and back for the whole game with no team able to run away from the opposition and was tied at 67-67 with a couple of minutes to go.
Lithuania scored two points on their possession, but Darius Songaila made an error defensively and fouled Emir Preldzic with no attempt on the ball. The play was rightly called unsportsmanlike, but Preldzic made only one-of-two free-throws and Turkey didn’t convert their in-game chance as well.
Songaila corrected a defensive lapse scoring two points to give Lithuania a 71-68 lead. Turkey’s attempts to stay in the game by fouling weren’t successful as Sarunas Jasikevicius and Simas Jasaitis didn’t make any errors from the line.
Darius Songaila top-scored for Lithuania with 12 points, Rimantas Kaukenas and Simas Jasaitis shared 11 points each, while Mantas Kalnietis had 9 for the hosts.
Turkey’s Ersan Ilyasova was the leading scorer of the game with 20 points, Omer Asik had 11, while Omer Onan and Hedo Turkoglu chipped in with 10 and 9 points respectively.
The win against Turkey guaranteed Lithuania a place in the next round, which will take place in Vilnius.
