Serbia - Latvia video

[slinslin]

http://www.fiba.com/CMS/inc_boxes/t.../News/News_body.asp?r_act_news=3206&r_cat=208

You can watch the entire game for free.

Milos is #13

Couldn't identify Zarko in the introduction. Milos is matched up against Sarunas Jasikevicius.

He drew a charge from him and hit a nice 3pter off of a screen. A couple nice assists on the break and a pull up 3 off the dribble over his defender.

 

[JS22]

Nice! Thanks!

 

[George O'Brien]

FIBA Writeup

FIBA: Diamond Ball: Lithuania 80 Serbia & Montenegro 93

04.08.2004

Hosts Serbia & Montenegro won the Diamond Ball tournament on Tuesday as they saw off Lithuania 93-80 in a final between two teams expected to challenge the United States for Olympic gold later this month.

The match pitted the world champions - the hosts - against the European champions in Lithuania.

Darius Songaila top-scored with 18 points for Lithuania while Saulius Stombergas and Arvydas Macijauskas also hit double digits with 17 and 10 respectively.

But they were no match for the home favourites who had four players in double figures.

Igor Rakocevic showed the way, pouring in 19 points but he received solid support from Dejan Bodiroga (15), Dejan Tomasevic (13), Milos Vujanic (12).

Tomasevic had an excellent game and also managed seven rebounds - a figure matched by Eurelijus Zukauskas of Lithuania.

Leading only 22-21 at the end of the first quarter, Serbia & Montenegro then took a firm grip on the match.

They took the second quarter 30-18 to soar to a 52-39 advantage at the interval.

The hosts never let Lithuania back in and also won the third quarter 20-17 although the Baltic team took the final period 24-21.

The Serbo-Montenegrins would have won by an even bigger margin had they done better with their free throws.

They managed 22 from 31 for a conversion rate of 71 percent while Lithuania’s tally of 20 from 25 was an 80 percent success.

Altogether the Serbo-Montenegrins managed 54 baskets from 97 including seven three-pointers from 20.

That compared to 47 from 86 for Lithuania including six three-pointers from 20.

Lithuania reached the semi-finals of the last Olympics where they lost 85-83 to the United States, missing a potentially game-winning three-pointer on the buzzer.

The Serbo-Montenegrins will also be expected to run the Americans close after winning back-to-back world championships.

I watched the first half. The Serbs are quite a bit different from the Italians and Germans. They rely heavily on cutters and their big men are all good interior passers. They hit some outside shots, but did not rely on them like the Italians did.

Also, the Serbs do not use as many screens as the Italians do, but they certain move well without the ball. The Serbs look a lot more athletic than the Italians and ran the ball extremely well.

They did struggle early on stopping the big inside guys from Lithuania including Songaila (Kings) who looked very impressive. It looks like the Serbs can be beat with a consistently strong low post game and back door plays, but it will take a lot better passing than the USA team has shown so far.

BTW, I think the reason that Vujanic does not have as many assists as he might (at least with the Serbian National team) is that they use their forwards to make most of the entry passes. Vujanic would pass to the other guard who would pass to the forward who would pass to a cutter. Vujanic would score after getting the ball back.

It's very frustrating that FIBA doesn't give box scores with their game writeups.