Eurobasket 2011

[newc]

iamamac, didn't saw much of those two games we had against them, but from what I heard their offensive game is based on passing the ball to Pachulia and hoping that he will get them points. He actually had a Dirk-like game against us - he scored 42 points and was the main (only?) reason why we lost the first game against them. In the second game we limited him to 20 points and won the game by 12 or something.

Latvia got the second win today against Great Britain, beating them by 23 points. It was actually a pretty good game from our side, which gives hope that we can get some wins at European Championship. Deng scored only 7 points against us.

[iamamac]

We beat Georgia, but with much difficulty (88-80). We were tied for some time in the third and forth quarter. Only at the end of the fourth quarter we pulled away with a big run.

Nice win Latvia! I hope that we will crush Great Britain on Wednesday, just like Latvia .

[iamamac]

Meet Lazdeika the Crab, our oracle for the tournament. Lets see what Lazdeika the Crab has to say. He's our oracle, and will be predicting games for us. Two coconut shells are set up with Lithuania's flag and the opponent flag. Because crabs don't like light, they go hide in a coconut shell. Whichever coconut shell the crab hides in, that country will win the match. Good luck Lazdeika ;)! I hope he goes into the Lithuanian coconut shell on Wednesday.

[George7]

Good Luck to Greece! Game against Bosnia has started now!

[Martti.]

http://www.eurobasket2011.com/en/default.asp?cid={13FE876A-D668-47E5-BFDF-C043215442BF}&compID={D166E39E-2323-4863-B229-76357A926FA2}&season=2011&roundID=7526&gameID=7983-A-1-1

Spain almost lost to Poland, who doesn't even have Gortat. Ricky Rubio with 0 points, 0 rebounds and 0 assists on 0-5 shooting. As I've said time and time again, he sucks.

[newc]

Latvia just lost to France by 11 points, but it was a really close game. We were ahead most of the first half and just 2 minutes before the end of the game Batum and Gelabale made two three pointers and Noah got a basket and a foul and France got away.

Latvian Janis Blums played phenomenally today. he had 32 points and 6 assists. Some quotes from English commentator about him:

I am running out of words to describe Janis Blums

That place of field should be named Janis Blums (He made 4 or 5 3-pointers from the same spot)

I could talk about NBA superstar Tony Parker, but than again – there is this man called Janis Blums

Next game for Latvia is against Serbia. I don't have much hopes against them, but we have a chance to grab couple of wins in later games.

[shadowgrin]

But but Rubio hustles on defense and he's the only pass-first point guard remaining in the NBA!

[Uros12]

Dominating performance by Serbia against Italy!

[_Steve_]

Germany won 91-64 against Israel.

[Cruzerr]

Really loved Spain-Poland, great play by Poland. I thought it was a sure thing that Spain will win, but it was not easy. Still waiting for France-Germany

[iamamac]

Latvia just lost to France by 11 points, but it was a really close game. We were ahead most of the first half and just 2 minutes before the end of the game Batum and Gelabale made two three pointers and Noah got a basket and a foul and France got away.

Latvian Janis Blums played phenomenally today. he had 32 points and 6 assists. Some quotes from English commentator about him:

I am running out of words to describe Janis Blums

That place of field should be named Janis Blums (He made 4 or 5 3-pointers from the same spot)

I could talk about NBA superstar Tony Parker, but than again – there is this man called Janis Blums

Next game for Latvia is against Serbia. I don't have much hopes against them, but we have a chance to grab couple of wins in later games.

Janis Blums was phenomenal. He was lights out from downtown, way better than Noah's teammate Korver (who can also hit fadeaway three-pointers). Latvia was so close!! Ouch!! Few mistakes defensively and France ran off. Damn Parker !

Lithuania defeated Great Britain with some resistance. Luol Deng was basically the whole British team. He was the team's small forward, center and point guard - he had 25 pts, 10 rebs and 4 asts. Despite this, I have to admit that Lithuanians did a pretty good job holding him back from dropping 40+ points. He shot 8/22 overall.

For Lithuania, Ksystof Lavrinovic was the X-factor - he had 12 pts and 6 rebs and he with him on court, we gained momentum. Jasikevicius showed that he still got game with 13 pts and 4 asts. Surprisingly, Kaukenas was the top scorer with 16 pts. He was almost completely quiet for three quarters and only shone in the fourth quarter, scoring 10 points.

Overall, Lithuania's defense was better, and the players were more enthusiastic and played with energy (for most of the game). The problem was, again, turnovers. We had 5 turnovers in the first half (which was great), but then committed 11 turnovers in the second half. We've got to improve in that area, because if we don't, teams like Turkey and Spain will take advantage of those turnovers and punish us for committing them.

---

The first game was pretty amazing - lots of failed upsets. Croatia vs. Finland, Spain vs. Poland, Slovenia vs. Bulgaria, France vs. Latvia, Great Britain vs. Lithuania, Ukraine vs. Russia and Serbia vs. Italy were all really close game. I didn't expect such performances out of weak teams . This makes the tournament ALL THE MORE challenging.

Good luck to everyone in second game!

[George7]

Really tougher than expected but Greece got tge win in the last minutes! I'm sure this lack of experience this young Greek team has is going to be a disadvantage, but the talent and freshness are hopefully going to help us. Still,it was the worst 30 minutes Greece played this year so far.

[Uros12]

Right now Dirk is playing like he has 25 years.

[_Steve_]

Right now Dirk is playing like he has 25 years.

Considering that he still had knee issues against Macedonia that really surprises me...

[The X]

http://www.eurobasket2011.com/en/default.asp?cid={13FE876A-D668-47E5-BFDF-C043215442BF}&compID={D166E39E-2323-4863-B229-76357A926FA2}&season=2011&roundID=7526&gameID=7983-A-1-1

Spain almost lost to Poland, who doesn't even have Gortat. Ricky Rubio with 0 points, 0 rebounds and 0 assists on 0-5 shooting. As I've said time and time again, he sucks.

I honestly think his game has digressed due to lack of confidence. When he was 15, 16, 17 etc he had a lot more swagger & that made a huge difference. He needs that swagger back. He could play before, he can play now.

[newc]

iamamac, congrats on winning GB, although I was surprised it was such a close game.

Some interesting match-ups today:

Great Britain-Turkey. I think the Brits can cause some trouble for Turkey, especially if Deng has a good game, but I predict Turkey's win here.

Germany-Italy. Nowitzki and Kaman were great against Israel and if they continue their great play, I think they won't have problems beating Italy.

Slovenia-Ukraine. For most people Slovenia is the clear favorite here, but Mike Frattelo has done a great job on Ukraine's defense, which looked great against Russia yesterday and could be even better today. Although, I still think that Slovenia will grab the win at the end.

[Uros12]

Again a great win by Serbs,however Latvia is a really good team.Although they started game bad,they recovered well in 2nd quarter.Our defense is something we need to work on.

[deihatein]

phpBB [video]

[iamamac]

Again a great win by Serbs,however Latvia is a really good team.Although they started game bad,they recovered well in 2nd quarter.Our defense is something we need to work on.

I agree completely. Latvia is a great team with quick, young blood, good defense and a leader PG (Janis Blums). Right now, Latvia's facing really tough opponents. I believe you can upset Italy, Germany and Israel and grab the last qualifying spot into the second round .

Serbia's pretty good, but not as good as they were 2 years ago. They can still do some damage . I'd like you to defeat France . Them cocky French are getting out of control .

Lazdeika the Crab was right again - we sunk Poland 97-77. I guess the Poles were tired from yesterday's game. Our defense at times looked really great, but at times sucked. We need to consistently play well both on offense and defense in order to beat Turkey. And NO MORE STUPID MISTAKES ! Turkey will makes us pay for those!

[_Steve_]

Despite 15-5 turnovers, Germany won against Italy in a game that was much closer than the final result shows. Luckily Bargnani didn't not disappoint Germany by disappointing Italy. Italy was really a nasty opponent which drawed early fouls by flopping everyone.
Germany managed to get away in the 4th with strong performances from Kaman, Benzing and Scharffattzik.
One thing I did not understand was, that our starting PG played despite really bad back spasms. That brought us a lot of turnovers...

[newc]

iamamac, Serbian coach Dusan Ivkovic compared this Latvian team to the Serbian team a couple of years ago, when they stopped inviting their older and better players and started to play with their young talents on international tournaments. But to correct you - our defense is one of our biggest weaknesses, especially inside defense, we allowed 90.5 points on these two first games..

Saw the Italy-Germany game yesterday and from what I saw, I think we can beat Italy today if Gallinari, Belinelli and Bargnani continue to shoot so many threes and play individually.

[_Steve_]

Seems as if Bargnani failed to disappoint tihs time...

[newc]

Seems as if Bargnani failed to disappoint tihs time...

Refs made sure no one touches or even looks badly at Bargnani without getting a foul.. Dissapointing loss, especially because we still could grab the win despite refs if we would make our free throws in the 4th quarter. I hope Italy doesn't get to second round, they don't deserve it.

[Uros12]

You were very close to winning,seems like you didnt had luck.And the refs were really bad from what I have seen.

[iamamac]

I didn't see the game, but I don't like Italians. I can still remember 2004 Athens Olympics when they defeated us 100-91 and prevented us from qualifying to the final . We had a really strong squad back then.

But on a lighter note, we beat Turkey! YES! It was a dramatic game, but that backcourt violation from Turkey destroyed last chances for Turks to beat us.

But seriously, Turkey is really talented offensively. It was a tough game. Whew, it's over!