Lithuania claimed its first victory of the summer by defeating Great Britain 63-61 (12-17, 25-20, 16-17, 10-7) in Houston on Saturday evening after Tomas Delininkaitis converted on a drive to the basket with 2.6 seconds remaining in the game.
After losing the first two games to Macedonia and Greece, the Lithuanians finally managed to open the victory count before the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Venezuela, which will start in eight days.
- You can check out the moments from the game in our photo gallery.
With the score tied at 59-59, one of the referees whistled a very dodgy three-second call on Jonas Valanciunas and then called a technical foul on Sarunas Jasikevicius.
Although Great Britain converted both free-throws to take a two-point lead, Lithuania managed to get a defensive stop, with Valanciunas tying up the score at 61-61 in the next possession.
With around 30 seconds left in the fourth quarter, had the possession in their hands and despite the fact that Linas Kleiza missed an open jumper, he grabbed the offensive rebound to give the Lithuanians another attempt.
This time, Tomas Delininkaitis converted on a drive to the rim after Sarunas Jasikevicius pulled out two defenders off a pick-and-roll. Great Britain still had 2.6 seconds for the last shot, but Dan Clarkâs half-hour heave rimed out.
Paulius Jankunas led all scorers with 13 points on 5-of-5 field goal attempts, Sarunas Jasikevicius and Jonas Valanciunas, who also grabbed eight rebounds, had 12 points each, while Martynas Pocius finished the game with eight points.
For Great Britain, Kyle Johnson scored 12 points, Dan Clark added 11, Joel Freeland collected 10 points, as Robert Archibald and Ogo Adegboye chipped in with eight points each.
