By Panos Katsiroumpas/ info@eurohoops.net
The World Cup shots is going to be an everyday round up from Eurohoops in which we will summarize everything that we liked or dislike during the games! So sit back and enjoy some very important details.
LITHUANIA- TURKEY
Lithuania defeated Turkey 73-61 in the first quarterfinal and they are just one win away of a medal. After the first period they dominated the game. This win was a result of some key factors that we are going to analyze right now.
Lavrinovic Brothers
Their presence on the court was the turning point in the 2nd quarter. They both played incredible defense, stopped the penetrations of the Turkish guards and Darius Lavrinovic was also a factor also in the offensive end. He scored three huge threepointers and dictated the tempo to the others to follow. The two brothers played together 28 minutes and contributed 13 points, 7 rebounds, 3 blocks and huge energy in defense.
Bench scoring
Bench scoring was a real factor in this game. Lithuania took 28 points from the bench while Turkey collected just 6. In previous games Turkey had a big boost from the players who were coming from the bench. Let’s have a look at the numbers. The bench players in previous games scored 176 points. That is an average of almost 30 points per game. The difference was huge and in this game it mattered a lot.
Three-points shooting
This was another number which determined the winner of this quarterfinal. Both teams found many open shots after good ball movement, but Lithuania hit all the big shots behind the three-points arc. Lithuania executed with 53% efficiency and had 10/19 threepoint shots, while Turkey struggled with 3/18 shots and only 17%. It’s a huge difference for a close game like that.
Seibutis and Pocius
Lithuania has to deal with the big absence of Kalnietis during this World Cup. In the game against Turkey they overcome this absence with the big performance of Pocius and Seibutis in the guards’ position. When they were together on the court, Lithuania was much more dangerous and productive in the offensive end. Seibutis was the leading scorer with 19 points, followed by Pocius with 13 and both contributed 3 assists.
USA- SLOVENIA
Team USA also advanced to the semifinals and they will meet Lithuania on Thursday. It was an easy win after the first half, during which Team USA faced some difficulties against Slovenia. The key factors that lead to this easy win where the following
Stopping Dragic brothers
If there was a tactical point for the Team USA to focus, it was not letting Dragic brothers do their game and find rhythm in the transition. They achieved to stop them and never let them do what they like. The focus of the defense was to stop their penetrations, make them pass the ball or shoot under the worst circumstances. Their numbers show the difficulties that they faced. They scored 24 points in total (6 less than their tournament average) with 10/27 FG and 6 turnovers.
The number of possessions
When a team faces Team USA has as a major goal to control the rhythm, the rebounds and their transition. Slovenia didn’t manage to stop them in any of this crucial factors. The number of turnovers was 25-11 in favor of the United States. The NBA stars also controlled the boards totally. The differential was 54-38 with Team USA having 24 offensive boards compared to only 12 of Slovenia. If we add all those numbers, we can see that United States had almost 26 more possessions, a number that prohibits any dream of winning to their opponents. Moreover Team USA had 42 fast break points compared to only 6 for Slovenia.