By Rigas Dardalis/ dardalis@eurohoops.net
History repeated itself. Like in 1995, Croatia met Lithuania in the semifinal, the national team of the Baltic country got the win (77-62) and will compete for the gold medal. Jonas Maciulis scored 23 points, Linas Kleiza did his damage in the first half with 17 points and finished the game with 22 and 11 rebounds, while Mantas Kalnietis added 18 points. The only player who scored in double digits for Croatia was Bojan Bogdanovic (15 p.).
Lithuania had just a 3 points lead in half time (40-37), however the partial score in the third quarter was 21-8 in favor of coach Kazlauskas’ players who never looked back. The scoreboard wrote 69-49 in the 33rd minute, Croatia was on the ropes and couldn’t make a come back.
It is important for us, for our generation, now that most of the older guys have left the team, our generation has proved that we can play basketball and represent Lithuania too,” said Maciulis who wants more: “I think we have proved something now and we need to take one more step”.