The Spanish team faces an entire final against the Lithuanians in Berlin, an enormous challenge with the aim of reaching the quarterfinals
The match comes three days after closing the first phase with a great victory over Turkey
Tomorrow of the eighth finals of the Eurobasket and a Spain-Lithuania (8:45 p.m., Four) on the track. In other times, this would have been the final of a EuroBasket, as it was in 2003, but we find ourselves in an alley where the winner will come out stronger and the loser will return home without having lived up to expectations.
Spain didn’t want Lithuania and most likely the Balts didn’t want us for this game either.. The capricious group B that framed France, Slovenia, Germany, Lithuania, Bosnia and Hungary has provided this team as the fourth best classified. Sergio Scariolo’s team arrives at the event in Berlin with two wins in a row after knocking down Montenegro and Turkey. Now the bar is raised against a Lithuania that has a quintet that is very scary.
Jokubaitis (Barça), Grigonis (Panathinaikos), Kuzminskas (Zenit), Sabonis (Kings) and Valanciunas (Pelicans) they form a starting quintet that is very scary and that has everything. Speed, passing, shooting from outside and, above all, muscle… rebound control and avoiding Lithuanian three-pointers will be key.
Opposite, our best player so far in the tournament, Willy Hernangómez, is Valanciunas’ backup on the Pelicans. The good news for Spain is that he knows them very well and that the depth of his bench is nil. When the substitutes come out, Lithuania lose a lot of points and our team will have to seek to charge them with fouls with a specialist in this kind of luck like Rudy Fernández on the pitch.
the madridista, who did not play against Turkey to recover from the inconvenience that dragged in a kneecan arrive today fresh to the vital duel and it would not be strange if he had a good run of minutes in a game that will require experience and a lot of reading of the game.
The Spanish team should also feel offended by what happened on the last day of Eurobasket with Croatian Bogdanovic in the match against Ukraine, missing a free kick on purpose to try to reach the quarterfinals if he passes this tie against Lithuania.
The year after the withdrawal of the Gasols may come the debacle or the vindication of Spain. Waiting for the ‘wizard’ Scariolo to pull his last rabbit out of his hat, Lithuania puts our history to the test.