By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
After celebrating at home in Vilnius, Lithuania couldn’t celebrate another friendly game victory over Slovenia. This time, the hosts came back to win 70-68 in the Stožice Arena in Ljubljana.
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Klemen Prepelic led the team with 15 points. Josh Nebo played his second-ever national team game after going up against Lithuania two days ago, and tonight he finished with 9 points and 6 rebounds. Both he and Mike Tobey were listed as this is a friendly game, but one of the two won’t travel to Greece.
Without Jonas Valanciunas, the Lithuanian national team will mainly count on its other NBA superstar for this summer’s duties. Against Slovenia, Domantas Sabonis went close to a double-double with 9 points and 15 rebounds. Lukas Lekavicius led his country in scoring with 13 points.
Slovenia will have to go through Croatia and New Zealand in Group A of the 2024 FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Piraeus, where the Greek hosts will face Egypt and the Dominican Republic in Group B. They will count on Luka Doncic, who finally joined the team’s training camp.
This was Lithuania’s fifth friendly game played in the last two weeks. Prior to the two friendlies against Slovenia, the Baltic national team beat three times in a row Lebanon to prepare for the 2024 FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Puerto Rico, where they will face Mexico and Ivory Coast in Group A.
Doesn’t take long for @Dsabonis11 to score his first points of the summer for the #LTUbasketball. pic.twitter.com/XoE488Xdeg
— LTU Basketball (@ltu_basketball) June 25, 2024
PHOTO CREDIT: Slovenian Basketball Federation