Lithuania demolish Slovenia, will face Latvia in 5th-place game / News - Basketnews.com

Lithuania returned to winning ways in the FIBA World Cup with a blowout over Slovenia in their first Classification Game, after Latvia beat Italy behind Andrejs Grazulis 28-point performance.

Credit: FIBA Credit FIBA

Two FIBA World Cup classification games were held on Thursday.

Player of the Game EFF 29 Jonas Valančiūnas Points 24 Accuracy 8-15 Rebounds 12 Assists 0

Lithuania were no match for Luka Doncic's Slovenia (100-84). Just 24 hours after a heated quarterfinal against Canada, which has seen plenty of emotions and Doncic's ejection, Slovenia gave their opponents a run for their money only in the first half.

As long as the Mavs superstar was able to keep his side in contention and Mike Tobey was making long-distance shots, the 2017 EuroBasket champs were close (43-47). However, Ignas Brazdeikis and Tomas Dimsa restored the order for Lithuania at half-time with consecutive 3-point shots off the dribble (53-43).

Tobey and offensive rebounds kept Slovenia afloat midway through the third quarter, while Doncic was shooting blanks from the field (0/7 FG). At the same time, Lithuania maintained their excellent percentages (close to 60%), kept scoring assisted baskets and saw several players (Sirvydis, Kuzminskas, Jokubaitis) contribute on the offensive end.

Lithuania opened up the gap once again, but this time for good (86-65 with eight minutes left). As it happened in the game against Canada, the Slovenians were unable to keep up with their opponents in the final stretch.

Jonas Valanciunas paced Lithuania with another double-double (24 points, 12 rebounds), Ignas Brazdeikis (15), Mindaugas Kuzminskas (14) and Deividas Sirvydis (14) followed, Overall, the winners recorded 28 assists and only 10 turnovers.

Doncic finished with 29 points, but went 1/10 in the last 20 minutes and 7/21 overall. He also had 6 rebounds, 2 assists and 5 turnovers. Aleksej Nikolic (14), Mike Tobey (13) and Zoran Dragic (12) also scored in double digits, but some of those points came in garbage time.

Lithuania will face Latvia (Saturday, 10:45 CEST) and will have the chance to claim the 5th place, while Slovenia will play Italy (Saturday, 14:30 CEST) in the game for spots 7-8.

In the first game of the day, Latvia put up another stellar performance, beating Italy 87-82.

Andrejs Grazulis was simply unstoppable, as he finished the game with28 points (9/10 2PT, 3/3 3PT, 1/1 FT), 6 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, and 36 EFF.

The Italian veteran, Luigi Datome, played one of the last games of his career and led Italy with 20 points (3/3 2PT, 4/7 3PT, 2/2 FT), 1 assist, and 17 EFF.

Every game of the World Cup can be streamed live or on-demand via the official Courtside 1891 platform. (Streaming restrictions apply)

Completed games

Lithuania vs. Slovenia

Live boxscore

Live stream

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Italy 82-87 Latvia

Boxscore

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