After a painful loss to Macedonia a day before,
Lithuania fell short against Greece as well, losing 70-82 (24-18, 17-36, 16-17, 13-11) in Kaunas on Sunday. After
the game it was announced that Mindaugas Kuzminskas and Tadas Klimavicius were
the two players cut before the training camp in Houston.
Robertas Javtokas opened the scoring for Lithuania with the first four points of the game to give Lithuania a 4-0 lead. However it didn’t take long for Greece to come back and even take the lead at 14-13 for short while, but Lithuania regained the initiative before the end of the quarter.
- You can check out moments from the game in our photo gallery.
Nick Calathes and Kostas Sloukas began the second period with three-pointers, giving Greece a 28-25 advantage after a 10-1 run. The Greeks pulled away to a 50-36 lead, with Lithuania playing hardly any defense.
“I’m happy to be back in Lithuania. The result
is not important, the goal is to practice and get better. Unfortunately we
don’t have much time for practices. We missed four players. We wanted to save
Spanoulis and Fotsis, Bourousis and Zisis are playing the Italian finals,” said
the coach of the Greek national team Ilias Zouros.
Even despite Lithuania’s attempts to get back
into the game, Greece maintained a double-digit lead throughout the second half
and cruised to an easy victory against the hosts, who lost their second game in
a row after being defeated by Macedonia yesterday.
“The second quarter was decisive. We tried to
come back in the second half. But we just couldn’t break the Greeks. Although
we won the rebounding battle, the effort on the rebounds in the fourth quarter
was lacking,” said the Lithuanian head coach Kestutis Kemzura.
Linas Kleiza, Mantas Kalnietis, Tomas
Delininkaitis and Paulius Jankunas all scored 10 points each for Lithuania,
while Robertas Javtokas added eight.
For Greece, Kostas Kaimakoglu scored 14. Giorgios Printezis had 12, while Kostas Vasiliadis, Nick Calathes and Kostas Papanikolaou all chipped in with 11 points.
