Sheridan Hoops

A better basketball site. For intelligent readers, from veteran writers.
Keep scrolling down. Good stuff here.

Eurobasket: Nowitzki to play his biggest game since NBA Finals

by

By Chris Sheridan

VILNIUS, Lithuania — With Serbia defeating Turkey this afternoon 68-67, Dirk Nowitzki still has a chance to get his national team into the quarterfinals when Germany plays Lithuania tonight. (The games can be watched live on FIBA.com).

It’ll be Nowitzki’s most important game since the NBA Finals, but his team doesn’t just need to win … they need to win by 11 points or more. 

That is because of the complicated FIBA tie-breaking rules, which use point differential among games between the tied teams to determine who advances.

If Germany defeats Lithuania, the records of Serbia, Germany and Lithuania will be 2-3 (Turkey, which dropped to 1-4 with the loss, has been eliminated). And since Lithuania defeated Serbia by 10 (100-90), and Serbia defeated Germany by 11 (75-64), the Germans need to win by 11 or more to win the tie-breaker, which would also eliminate Lithuania from the tournament.

In the Serbia-Turkey game, a rematch of last year’s semifinal at the World Championship in Istanbul, the Turks trailed for nearly the entire game but had a chance to win it at the end after Milos Teodosic (20 points but six turnovers) missed a long 3-pointer with 18 seconds left. Turkey rebounded the miss (and could not call timeout under FIBA rules) and got the ball inside to Omer Onan, whose shot was blocked out of bounds by Dusko Savanovic. with 4.0 seconds left.

That allowed Turkey to take a timeout, and coach Orhun Ene drew up a play on which the first two options were to inbound the ball to shooters in the corners, and the third option was to get the ball to Ilyasova as close to the basket as possible.

Option No. 3 was the one the Turks had to go to, and Ilyasova’s off-balance jumper from a tough angle bounced off the rim, ending the Olympic aspirations of the team that finished second to the United States at last year’s World Championship.

“We had big expectations for this tournament, but we didn’t show our potential,” Ene said. “I am disappointed because we had promised the Turkish people we would try to qualify for the Olympics for the first time in a long time.”

As I write this entry, Spain is playing France for first place in Group E. But in a measure of how meaningless to the overall big picture this game is, France is resting Tony Parker and Joakim Noah.

 

Comments

  3. Between me and my husband we’ve owned more MP3 players over the years than I can count, including Sansas, iRivers, iPods (classic & touch), the Ibiza Rhapsody, etc. But, the last few years I’ve settled down to one line of players. Why? Because I was happy to discover how well-designed and fun to use the underappreciated (and widely mocked) Zunes are.

  4. Hi there! This post couldn’t be written any better! Reading through this post reminds me of my previous room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this article to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read. Thank you for sharing!

  6. Thank you for making the trustworthy attempt to discuss this. I believe very sturdy about it and wish to read more. If it’s OK, as you achieve more intensive wisdom, would you mind adding more articles similar to this one with additional information? It could be extremely helpful and useful for me and my friends.

  9. Just right issues?I might be aware that as somebody who in reality doesn’t write on blogs a lot (in fact, this may be my first put up), I don’t think the time period ‘lurker’ could be very changing into to a non-posting reader. It’s not your fault the least bit , but in all probability the blogosphere may get a hold of a greater, non-creepy identify for the 90% people that experience reading the content .

  10. I hope you never stop! This is one of the best blogs I have ever read. You have got some mad skill here, man. I just hope that you do not lose your style because youre definitely one of the coolest bloggers out there. Please keep it up because the internet needs someone like you spreading the word.

  11. I do agree with all of the ideas you’ve offered on your post. They are really convincing and can definitely work. Still, the posts are very brief for novices. May just you please lengthen them a little from next time? Thank you for the post.

  13. Fantastic page design, a lot better page. The sole thing is, I am which has a amount of trouble speaking about this page, uncertain should it be my connectivity or what. Appears like other responders could be keeping the same issue. Just info anyway! Cheers, Mate!

  18. Zune and iPod: Most people compare the Zune to the Touch, but after seeing how slim and surprisingly small and light it is, I consider it to be a rather unique hybrid that combines qualities of both the Touch and the Nano. It’s very colorful and lovely OLED screen is slightly smaller than the touch screen, but the player itself feels quite a bit smaller and lighter. It weighs about 2/3 as much, and is noticeably smaller in width and height, while being just a hair thicker.

  22. How can I add a hit counter to my blogger blog? Detailed instructions would be appreciated. I searched counter on google and i can get this html code but i dont know what to do with it. Thanks!.

  23. Hello. . I added a simple slide show on my blog but i don’t really like it and someone told me that the slide show i’m looking for is flash and i was wondering… Are there any ready flash slideshow widgets that i could use? Or if not, is there a simple way to create a flash slideshow to your blogspot?.

  25. I’m impressed, I should say. Really rarely should i encounter a weblog that’s both educative and entertaining, and permit me to inform you, exhibiting hit the nail within the head. Your idea is superb; the problem is one thing that not enough persons are talking intelligently about. Im delighted that I came across this during my search for something talking about this.

  29. Virtually the very same image is shown from a fairly wide range of different angles and distances, indicating the vastness from the plains and also the souped up that these characters hold (or will hold) over them.

  31. naturally like your internet site however you must look into the spelling on many within your posts. Some of them are rife with spelling issues we still find it very troublesome to tell the truth nevertheless I am going to certainly return again.

  34. An interesting discussion is worth comment. I think that you should write more on this topic, it might not be a taboo subject but generally people are not enough to speak on such topics. To the next. Cheers

  35. What I would like to do is write a posting on my blogspot and have the most recent entry post onto my personal webpage. Is there any way to do this and would the coding be fairly easy? I know a little about web design and coding, so if it would involve connecting my blogspot to the page somehow, I could probably do it. . . If this is possible, please point me in the right direction so that I could achieve this feature. Any help is greatly appreciated!.

  36. so basically, i want to down;oad one of those programs that makes ur mouse pointer cool, but i don’t want it to screw up my computer.. . what’s a good one?.

  37. Kemzura – “We Are Going To Win”

    A defeat against Germany on Sunday for Lithuania?

    Lithuania coach Kestutis Kemzura won’t even contemplate that possibility.

    Kemzura, who had coached Latvia at the EuroBasket in Poland, also didn’t have Rimantas Kaukenas, Darius Songaila, Sarunas Jasikevicius, Ksistof Lavrinovic and Marijonas Petravicius.

    All five have returned to the side this summer.

    But there are no Linas Kleiza or Jonas Maciulis, vital members of last year’s team, due to injuries.

    Lithuania also lost Darjus Lavrinovic shortly before the EuroBasket and then center Petravicius early in the tournament to a lung problem.

    The hosts still managed to knock off Serbia 100-90 on the opening night of Group E and pushed France to the limit before falling.

    If Lithuania are to go far in this tournament, it stands to reason they will need fan-favourite Jonas Valanciunas to keep up the good work.

    The young center has found great chemistry with veteran playmaker Sarunas Jasikevicius on the floor and that is exactly what Kemzura wanted.

    “For Jonas to play with Sarunas (Jasikevicius) is a good combination for Lithuania,” Kemzura said.

    The 19-year-old Valanciunas had 18 points in the victory over Serbia while he finished with 12 points against France.

    “He is young and he is still on his way,” said Kemzura of Valanciunas. “He still has to learn a lot but he gives energy and has a lot of passion for the game.

    “He is doing pretty good.

    “He is good at pick-and-roll as he is fast and mobile.”

    http://www.eurobasket2011.com/en/coid_yekjMZrYJUwrQ7fkgjfu33.articleMode_on.html

Recent Posts

Categories

Archives