By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Manila, Philippines – This is the third time that Lithuania has beaten the USA on the senior level.
However the first was back in the FIBA World Cup of 1998, when due to the NBA lockout, the U.S. were represented by a team of non-NBA professional.
The really “important” win came in the 2004 Athens Olympics, when Lithuania was the reigning European champions and led by Sarunas Jasikevicius beat a team that included among others, Tim Duncan and Allen Iverson.
That’s why beating the USA again is not a small feat for Lithuania, as Donatas Motiejunas admitted, speaking about his childhood memories: “I was a kid at that time, I was 14 years old so I remember watching the game and it was something spectacular. Like I said from the first day we are here to bring joy to our people, to our basketball and I know how crazy it’s right now in Lithuania. And I really loved that we, as a team, can bring this joy to our people”.
After all this version of Lithuania didn’t arrive in the World Cup as a favorite. On the contrary, there were huge doubts, as Motiejunas explained: “It’s unbelievable. If you ask someone before the tournament he would say, it would be good if we made it to Top16. That’s what everyone was talking about. But this team is really humble”.
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Simply put the real championship starts in two days: “We understand who we are, we understand how hard we have to work to get wins and this is the most important thing”.
However, that doesn’t change the fact that beating the USA is not a small feat, but now Motiejunas wants even more: “Of course, they are one of the most talented teams in the world championship. But this is honestly just the group stage, now the real games start, the knockout games and we have to shift our focus on them”.