What's Coming Up? Lithuania vs Germany, September 3 - 7th Place - Dallas-Mavs.com Forums

Dirkgreatness · 09-03-2006, 12:41 PM

02/09/2006

What's Coming Up? Lithuania vs Germany, September 3 - 7th Place

SAITAMA (FIBA World Championship) - Germany and Lithuania will try to leave the FIBA World Championship on a high note as the Europeans face off in the battle for seventh place.

Germany came to Japan as 2002 bronze medalists and EuroBasket 2005 silver-medal winners.

National team boss Dirk Bauermann is pleased his side is even playing this game.

"Regardless if we finish seventh or eighth, I can say now that we have achieved our original goal, which was to finish among the top eight teams in the world," said Bauermann.

"Even if our dream of a medal didn't come true, we could still fly home on Monday satisfied."

After losing to the United States in the quarter-finals and then France in the classification round, Dirk Nowitzki wants to finish this competition with a positive.

"The losses against the Americans and the French were really tough. Now we have to see that we find a good end to this tournament," said Nowitzki, who carried Germany to the silver medal at last summer's EuroBasket.

The MVP from the 2005 European event, Nowitzki has again put up big numbers, averaging 23.9 points (second to Yao Ming 25.3), a tournament-high 9.6 rebounds and 3.1 assists (sixth among players in the quarter-finals).

Still, the 2.13m star has had three games of less than 16 points and shot 43% from the field for the tournament, including a three of 12 night against the United States.

"I haven't been as consistent at this tournament as I was at the EuroBasket in Belgrade," he admitted.

The Lithuanians are ready for this tournament to end.

After beating Brazil in Group C to clinch their place in the last 16, Antanas Sireika's team survived against the Italians to make the quarter-finals.

They were man-handled by Spain and then blew a 11-point lead in the final 2:40 in losing to Turkey in overtime of the classification round.

The Baltic nation has plenty to improve upon. The team commited 28 turnovers against the Turks.

They average more than 21 turnovers per game, while dishing out just more than 15 assists per contest.

Lithuania are also making just 65% of their free throws in the tournament.

Center Robertas Javtokas is among those who has struggled at the line.

He said: "The way we're playing right now, we're going to have to fix a lot of things if we want to finish seventh."

One positive for the Lithuanians is the offensive output of Linas Kleiza. Against Turkey, the 21-year-old forward had his fourth game with 14 or more points.

By David Hein
FIBA

http://www.fiba.com/pages/eng/fe/06_...gLC=en&season=

fluid.forty.one · 09-03-2006, 12:51 PM

Dammit, I thought Dirk was done.

mqywaaah · 09-03-2006, 01:48 PM

Im glad Dirk can grab some rest before camp starts. He'll need rest, lots of it! Now he can concentrate on his primary obligations, one of which is winning a title for our team, the kicka** Dallas Mavericks!

Edit: removed the word "those"

Dirkgreatness · 09-03-2006, 03:08 PM

03/09/2006

Game Report, Lithuania vs Germany, 77-62, 7th Place

SAITAMA (FIBA World Championship) - Darius Lavrinovic and Linas Kleiza combined for 34 points to lead Lithuania to a 77-62 victory over Germany and seventh place at the FIBA World Championship.

The game was decided early in the fourth quarter as Lithuania went on a 17-2 run to open the period while Germany went 11 and a half minutes without a basket.

Lavrinovic collected 18 points in just 19 minutes including a perfect three of three from long range. Kleiza continued his impressive end to the tournament with 16 points and seven rebounds.

"This is definitely a good result for us as we are a young team that is still trying to figure itself out," Kleiza said.

"The thing we were able to do today that we haven't done in recent games is just play our game, get a good lead and maintain it."

Darius Songalia chipped in with 13 points.

With the victory, Lithuania matched their seventh place finish in 1998, their only previous FIBA World Championship appearance.

Germany came into the tournament as the 2002 bronze medalists. But Dirk Bauermann's team achieved their goal of finishing among the top eight in the world

"We would have liked to have finished higher, but overall we played a good tournament," Bauermann said. "Had we beaten France, and we were in a great position to do so, we could have finished in fifth or sixth place. But anywhere between fifth and eighth is still great for us."

Dirk Nowitzki scored 18 points and grabbed six rebounds while Ademola Okulaja added 10 points.

"It wasn't a great game. Obviously we started really slow. Our defense was terrible," Nowitzki said. "We were down 13 early but we kept battling back. They played zone defense at the end, and we couldn't really do anything against it."

"It's tough luck. But overall, finishing eighth in the world is not bad." Nowitzki added.

Germany, however, struggled throughout the game with Lituania's zone defense, shooting 36 percent from the field and turning the ball over 25 times.

"Our goal was to keep Dirk under 20 points, and that's what we did," Lithuania forward Mindaugas Zuzkauskas said.

Pascal Roller, who got the starting nod from Bauermann for the first time in the tournament, buried back-to-back three-pointers to give Germany a 13-11 lead with 5:44 left in the first period.

Lithuania though executed vey well, picking apart the German defense while out-scoring Bauermann's men 19-4 the rest of the quarter for a 30-17 advantage.

Lithuania's lead grew to 15 points - 38-23 - on a Lavrinovic trey. Jan Jagla answered right back with a three-pointer of his own and Johannes Herber and Okulaja each made a long ball as Germany closed the gap to 47-41 at the interval.

Nowitzki started the second half by converting a three-point play, which Okulaja followed with a three-point shot. And Germany's star big man evened the game at 49-49 with a break away dunk at the 6:17 mark.

But the Baltic nation worked the lead back up to 58-54 going into the fourth quarter on Kleiza's late three-point play.

In the final period, Lavrinovic scored six straight points and Darius Songalia added five consecutive as Lithuania blew the game wide open with a 17-2 spurt to start the fourth - 75-56.

Germany didn't score their first basket of the fourth quarter until Herber's three-pointer with 2:18 remaining - 11:33 since their last bucket. By that time the game was beyond reach and Germany could only close to 14 the rest of the way.

By David Hein
FIBA

and heres the boxscore

nashtymavsfan13 · 09-03-2006, 05:37 PM

It's finally over, he can finally get some rest!