By Rigas Dardalis/ dardalis@eurohoops.net
Lithuania (3-1) was up by 21 points at the end of the first half (44-23) over Belgium (0-4) and the game was already over. Coach Kazlauskas team got the 86-67 win and have already qualified to the quarterfinals.
A balanced offense, a rebounding advantage (41-29) and the difference of quality in the front line were the main reasons behind Lithuania’s triumph against a team which in theory was fighting for its last chance of qualification, but couldn’t do much. The winners had even a 35 points lead in the third quarter and of course they took a little bit their foot off the gas until the end of game. Jonas Valanciunas had 12 points, 10 rebounds and despite a hard foul during the first half that caused a wound, but he was ready for the challenge.
“We started this game from defense, at the beginning we missed a few open shots but we knew anyway that if we played defense the scoring would come, and that’s how it happened. Generally we controlled the game for 35 minutes, but for sure we cannot play basketball like we did in the last five minutes,” said Lithuania coach Jonas Kazlauskas.