Lithuania suffered yet another loss in the
friendly game marathon leading up to the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in
Venezuela, losing 68-77 (19-18, 18-17, 13-21, 18-21) to Russia in Houston on
Wednesday night.
The team has been struggling quite badly this
summer, having lost the first two games against Macedonia and Greece before
sneaking away with a victory against Great Britain, despite a still rather poor
performance.
The game against Russia started off promisingly
for Lithuania, who took a 33-25 with the first half coming to the end. However,
the Russians managed to get back within two points after a 10-4 run to end the
second quarter.
Russia stepped up the defensive pressure in the
second half, beginning the third quarter with a 15-5 run, which allowed them to
take a lead at 50-42. Their lead had increased to 16 points, but Lithuania went
on a 6-0 run to erase the deficit to 10 points.
However, sloppy execution and silly turnovers
didn’t allow the Lithuanians to challenge Russia more seriously, as the team
never got back to serious contention, only managing to chip down the disadvantage
to nine points.
Linas Kleiza and Jonas Valanciunas led
Lithuania with 12 points each, with the latter also adding eight rebounds,
Jonas Maciulis and Rimantas Kaukenas both added 11 points, while Robertas
Javtokas and Tomas Delininkaitis chipped in with 6 points each.
For Russia, Aleksandr Kaun had a game-high 21
points, Andrei Kirilenko was as-always efficient, scoring 15 points and
grabbing eight rebounds, while Timofey Mozgov and Sergey Monia finished the
game with 10 points each.
