By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Croatia got the 90-81 win over Lithuania and finished on top of Group B in the game that decided the quarterfinals of the Rio Olympic basketball tournament.
The winners had a bad last quarter, but they managed to get the win having Dario Saric (18 p., 6 r., 3 as.), Bojan Bogdanovic (22 p.) and Krunoslav Simon (19 p., 10 r., 6 as.) in a big day. Mantas Kalnietis (26 p., 11 as.) and Paulius Jankunas (18 p.) tried to save their team, but couldn’t.
Despite a 21-13 start by Lithuania, when Jonas Valanciunas got to the bench in order to rest, Croatia got things going in offense. After a 7-2 run at the start of the second quarter, they closed the gap and thanks to Saric (13 p.) they ended the first half with a 47-41 advantage.
Things didn’t change in the third quarter with Croatia building a 14 points lead (64-49) and entering the last period with the score being 75-55. Lithuania seemed out of sync and the game was almost over.
The players of coach Jonas Kazlauskas tried in the remaining time to get back into the game. They managed to cut the lead of Croatia to six (85-79) after a steal by Jonas Maciulis and a dunk by Kalnietis. However they couldn’t get any closer and Croatia managed to avoid a match up with the USA in the quarterfinals.