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The Lithuanian basketball players, who experienced an unexpected loss in the first friendly match in the Estonian capital Tallinn, blamed only themselves.
Lithuania fell to Estonia 85:92 during overtime at the start of the Baltic Way tournament. Tomorrow, ours will play with Latvia, and they can fight for the first place only if they beat the Latvians and achieve a favorable result in the confrontation between Latvia and Estonia.
The Lithuanian national team was preparing for this tournament for two weeks, but during them they initially paid close attention to physical training and only later moved to the basketball hall.
“Everyone should have some kind of self-esteem, and now it has been mentioned,” said Marius Grigonis a few minutes after the failure against the Estonians. – I won’t even analyze the match, I can’t lose to the Estonians. The salary of one of our players as the sum of all of them. It’s a shame for the fans who came. “
One after another, basketball players mentioned Lithuania’s main problem in the duel with Estonia: undefeated balls. The hosts took up to 19 balls in the attack and scored 23 points with the second chance, while the Lithuanian national team only 13.
“Everything was lost due to the second chances of the rivals,” said team captain Mantas Kalnietis. “In the attack, more or less things were normal, but Estonians were really much more enthusiastic and showed more desire.”
“I want to,” Grigonis replied in one word to the question of how the Lithuanians gave up their opponents in the fight for the balls.
“For a moment we looked at it with our fingers and we finally lost,” said Edgar Ulanov. – Clearly unacceptable, we are all very disappointed. It remains to draw conclusions and rehabilitate in the next game, because we see that many Lithuanians have arrived.
We have to blame ourselves and admit that we made them feel good. Sure, we can make excuses, but that’s unacceptable. In the second half, we saw moments when we got together a little, but it remains to be analyzed and played better tomorrow. “
The Lithuanian national team was the most penalized by 19-year-old Kerras Kriisa, who debuted in the Euroleague with Kaunas Žalgiris last season, and will play in the NCAA starting next season.
The player scored 26 points (1/1 deficit, 8/12 trit.) In 29 minutes, he made 7 assists and scored 33 utility points.
“It really looked amazing,” Kalnietis said of Kerra. – Nail, confident. He looked impressive here in both decisions and nail interpretations that severely undermined our defense. “
“It just came to our attention then. Congratulations, I played well, but I can’t do it,” Grigonis said.
Although the game ended bitterly, the basketball players finally had a chance to escape on the parquet. Nine team basketball players have not played since March, and Marius Grigonis, even 8 months. Only Tadas Sedekerskis ran on the floor during a CBA league game this summer.
“It felt good and he really wanted an official game. Although we play a few halves on TV, it’s still not the same. It’s nice to be back in the field, but we came back a bit tasteless, “said Kalnietis.
An opportunity to wash away the bitterness of failure awaits Saturday. The match with Latvia will start at 7.30 pm.
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