ŁÓDŹ, Poland — Lithuania were easily defeated by Spain 84-70, ending any hope they had of making it to the quarter-final stage of EuroBasket ‘09.

Lithuania had arguably their best start to game in the tournament to date, controlling the run of play for the first-quarter, seeing them head into the quarter break with a commanding nine point lead (24-15). However, this was followed by some of the most inept basketball Lithuania have played, not only squandering their lead but letting the Spanish pour on 23 unanswered points as they failed to score a point for the first eight minutes of the second-quarter. They were fortunate to only be down by eight (40-32)at half-time.

At the start of the second-half it looked like Lithuania may have been able to mount a comeback but this was short-lived as the Spanish went on another scoring spree to build the lead to as much as 21 to be leading 64-43 going into the final quarter. The Lithuanians will take no consolation out of winning the final quarter with the game already well and truly in the bag for the Spanish, who seemed to relax for the final 10 minutes.

Marijonas Petravičius was the only shining light in a poor Lithuanian performance, leading his team in points (13) and rebounds (8). Again Lithuania were at a loss to explain where everything had gone so horribly wrong with Artūras Jomantas telling EuroBasket2009.org after the game that he did not know why his team just stopped after the first quarter.

The Lithuanians final game in Poland will be against Serbia who already looked destined for the quarter-finals on Wednesday night.