WROCŁAW, Poland — After being on the receiving end of an upset of sorts on Monday night, Lithuania went into their second game against tournament hosts Poland seeking to put their campaign back on track. However, their campaign became even further derailed when the hosts put together one of their most complete team performances in recent memory to comprehensively beat one of the pre-tournament favorites 86-75.
Signs were ominous from the start with the Poles going on an early scoring spree to be leading 14-2 early in the game. The Lithuanians looked flat and did not appear to have any answers as to how to counter the rampant Poles. Eventually the Lithuanians found some of rhythm to reduce the deficit to just two (25-23) by the end of the first-quarter.
In the second-quarter, Poland started like they had in the first, stretching the lead to as much as 10 points to go into the half-time break 42-32 up. There was no coming back for the Lithuanians as the Poles refused to relinquish their lead, keeping a 10 point buffer throughout the second-half.
The Lithuanians again failed to find any team coherency with their defense looking disorganized and subsequently found wanting too many times. Any thoughts that the Lithuanians may have had of a late rally were soon thwarted by Polish hero, Michal Ignerski who sunk three three-pointers in a row midway through the final quarter to keep the Lithuanians at bay.
Following the game, Lithuanian coach Ramūnas Butautas was in no doubt as to where his team had faltered the most, telling eurobasket2009.org that his team had simply been too weak on defence, giving the Poles too many open three-pointers. Lithuanian team member Tomas Delinikaitis, talking to the same source stated that he did not know where the team character has gone or how to get it back.
Lithuania have one chance to stay in the competition when they play the other winless team from their pool Bulgaria tonight. Failure to win will see Lithuania crossing the border home with their tail between their legs and a lot of questions to answers to.
