martin wrote:haha,the guy who incosiderabvly thought argentina will pass lithuania, how much did you lose my friend? oh, the bookies, never have any brains regarding basketball.
seriously, even if we lose aginst states, we are the best TEAM in the tournament: very mediocre talent, very low percentage, but so much desire and tactics. i'm too proud of our guys. we did it.
i really really liked the way argentin alooked on the bench, no more cockiness, literally - no one has been able to cock feed lithuania. whoever tried, got smoked.
my prediction, if i sense any cock sentence from USA, i bet you're smoked, if stay humble, you got more talent and natrurally you would win.
anyways, best performing team - Lithuania!

You are right , I thought Aregentina would win. I based this off of what I saw when we played Lithuania, but your guys have been playing EXCELLENT recently . USA has got their work cut out if they want to win against you... it is not the same team we saw in August.

I'll write something about Serbia's loss to Turkey a little bit later, maybe even tomorrow, cause, to be honest, I'm too pissed on the referees and Turkey players to be civilized.

I'll just mention that we had 10 free throws less in a close game, where they played a lot more agressive. Krstic's 5th foul was hilarious to say the least, adn they got plus one for that foul. And that poorest play in the basketball I have ever seen, Asik gets fould, he's supposed to go to free throw line, and like half a minute later he falls to the ground and starts simulating some kind of a injury, so he gets out and instead of him, they put in a guy that is their's best free throw shooter. Pathetic.
In the 3rd quarter we had 4 fouls after 2 minutes of play, and in the 4th after whole minute and a half. And they get their 4 fouls a little bit before the end of the quarter. Never seen so biased refereeing, I was expecting it, because it is played in Turkey, but this much...

Our guys played really good, I can't say anything bad, except that broken defense in the end. Anyway, USA won't play other best team on this tournament because of this game, they'll play home team instead. I wish all the best to US team, and to beat Turkey so bad, that they don't think of coming out on a basketball court in future.

OK, I said I won't write anything, but I guess the game got the best of me.

ok, first, my heart goes out to guybrush, you deserved to win, but that terrible mistake at the end cost you the game.
anyway i'm somewhat excited we get to play you for third place, clash of eastern european basketball.
as for the usa-lithuania, well, you had durant, enough said.
we could not compete at running, and had no shots falling at start which dug a hole, and young americans are not argentina, can't be faster than them, so it cost too much energy to chase them.
oh, and i don't think that whenever you swat at the ball, it's a steal, at least 50 percent of the time it's a foul. physics and geometry.
other than that i expect a good fight for third place

Thanks, Martin. That was one tough loss, and I'm quite sure that Turkey wouldn't get so far if this tournament was played anywhere else but Turkey...oh, well.

Like you said, at least will get to play each other.

At least Djokovic just won against Federer, so at least something good for Serbia today.

Serbia definately deserved to be in the finals... such a shame FIBA has heavily favored the home nation to reach the finals.

Don't worry, Guybrush. The USA will kick turkeys butt tomorrow!

I know they will, I will be cheering for USA like I would for Serbia in the finals.

I was expecting bad game from Serbia...though, not this bad. Anyway, can't watch the whole game, hopefully they'll get better in the second half.

i'm quite happy with us being the second best team of the world championship.
we played good game against serbia and left them no chances (sorry, guybrush i guess we'll meet soon in euro 2011 inlithuania:). bookies were quite dumb again.
also, kudos to U.S., you won me some easy money, especiially with that three point shot by odom (THAT doesn't mean i'll root for lakers, though) in the fourth.
well, unexpectedly, but lithuania was in best form performing second only to usa.
what more should one want. with emergence of our youngsters, champions of under 16 and 18 european tournament, we have to expect to be on top in europe for a decade, and with some luck, snatch couple of tourneys from U.S.

Congratulations on the win, Martin, you played better and deserved it. I knew USA is gonna beat Turkey easily, so congtrats to them as well, even though that was expected.

I have to disagree with you on that second best team, but you have right to your opinion, as I do have on mine. We played awul today which was expected due to the conditions in which we lost the day before. The guys just weren't in the game, and I knew they would play bad. Prior to today, Serbia played the most offensive game after USA. Once again, congratulations, you deserved to win today fair and square, it's Serbia's fault that they weren't in the game. We'll see you next year, and in London afterwards.

@guybrush : checkout this article, sure makes u upset that they don't have better officiating in the worlds:
http://www.ballineurope.com/countries/t ... call-7309/

refereeing is a problem at any sports and any federation or assocciation, and there are many purely human (mistake, miscue and so on) factors, but also such thing as favouritism and betting, in these semis and tourney, it was turkey and usa who got favourited. usa for not getting called for travel, when far from defender and for letting them slap when the opposition team's ball is low whenever and howerver they like. turkey got all the 50-50 calls go their way and some other nuances.
i know that next year lithuanians will be at least to a degree favourited since the euro championinship takes place in lithuania.
anyway blaiming referees is old and useless thing. it should come as no surprise that there's no fair refereeing. the only thing is to diminish the intanglibles of letting their mistakes hurt the game. which, of course, will be technology.
AND to foster egalitarian thinking - ALL teams are equal. There are no favourites untill the game finishes. Even more so before tourney. alas, this is utopic, but it must be demanded.

GSW Hoops Fan wrote:@guybrush : checkout this article, sure makes u upset that they don't have better officiating in the worlds:
http://www.ballineurope.com/countries/t ... call-7309/

I know, mate, saw it already, thanks for reminding me. Just kidding, I'm not that upset anymore, just needed a few days. Even though he did step out, and Serbia would won if the ref made the call, I still blame our team for terrible defense on that play.

@Martin: This is the part where we disagree. You see, even though as it is mostly like you say, that you can win even if the refs are favoring the other team, it's not always like that. For instance, if they make a few bad calls, it can't influence the game that drastically, but if they are having completely different criterion when it comes to foul calls throughout the game, you can't deal with it. In Serbia against Turkey game, you could have seen that, Serbia had 4 fouls in the last 2 quarters at the very beginning, like after 2 minutes, and Turkey made their four fouls less than a minute before the end of the quarter. All the big Serbian players had foul troubles, Turks had twice as much free throws...and it would be OK if they weren't the ones that played on the edge of the foul all of the game. Plus their hands on the faces of Serbian players were never called as technical fouls. Sometimes, even though you play as hard as you can, it will not be enough, and that's a sad thing. I'm really hoping you won't have that feeling after some Lithuania's match in the near future, it makes you feel so powerless.

guybrush, i felt that, i felt that in 1995 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroBasket_1995). also, if lithuania had hit their shots or durant had day off, and we stayed close in the match against USA, i would feel the same. for the reason i told you (the slapping of the ball with no foul called, which is 50 percent at least a foul, this is the unwritten rule and precisely when lithuanians tried to do the same got called instantly and i remmember the smiles on their faces).
anyway, i understand you, but my point was, that while it's organizations and human beings running the show, you can't avoid that. i watched the serbian-turkey game, and being not a fan of any team, i really could not tell that refereeing was so BS'ed, only some favouritism, anyway, you could have played better at the final defensive possesion and won.
i think we would have won against turkey now, that's not fair

Can't and don't wanna persuade you. If you can't see that refereeing was biased even when you see guy stepping out of bounds in the last play 4 seconds before the end of the game which they would have lost if the ref blowed the whistle...that's your opinion, and I don't mind it. I just can't see it the way you do, cause the ref was like 3 feet away with a perfect view on that play. And that slapping of the ball, and 50 percent and human beings running the show...still, too much of a difference when you get 4-5 fouls in the first minute and a half, and the other team gets the same amount of fouls after 9 minutes, and I could swear they played with far more contact. And techical fouls I mentioned as well, that's clear to all who watch basketball, when you punch a guy in the face (no matter how hard) it's a technical foul. And Asik losing his eye so that other guy can go to FT lime...c'mon.

Anyway, let's leave it as it is (this subject). We'll see you all next year. And, even though you're be playing home, don't surprise when you don't get much help as Turks did this tournament.