We may be franchouillard as much as possible, thinking only of the French team morning, noon and evening for ten days, we are not going to squirm from the derche to match right: this round of 16 between Spain and Lithuania IS the biggest poster of the day. two teams that weren’t supposed to meet so early in the competition, but the Group of Death and a rough start from the Lithuanians decided otherwise. Send the preview!
We almost mightn’t have dreamed of a better day for the round of 16. We start with a very French entry and we end with a huge clash of European basketball, between two teams that we are more used to seeing fight for the podium, admit that our Saturday is a mouthful. Why such a poster… so soon? So ask the Lithuanians, here’s what it’s like to start a Euro with three defeats, it’s more of an ignition delay here, it’s downright the 205 that stalled on the starting line. Defeat once morest Slovenia, France and Germany, not shameful either but not what is expected of a contender for the title, that’s how they were announced, we’re not making anything up, and at the final here are therefore the Lithuanians obliged to fade a very very very large piece of the continental scene to continue to dream of a medal.
But in this story, let’s not forget that the Spaniards find themselves a bit in the skin of the turkey stuffing, they who managed their group stage rather well despite a somewhat inexplicable defeat once morest Belgium. This year the Spanish group is in no way the scarecrow that we have known for… around fifteen years, but the in-house training and the innate talent of the Iberians for this game continues to make it a bit scratchy, although he is coming. The Hernangomez bros handle a nice chunk of leadership, Rudy Fernandez puts a few fingers in the eye and a few arrows from the parking lot when he can, Usman Garuba is progressing day by day and Lorenzo Brown is comfortable in the lead, enough to make this Roja one of the favorites of this Euro. A challenge that the twin towers Sabonis and Valanciunas will have to take up, a match in which the kid Jokubaitis will have a hard time facing opponents he knows very well, a match in which the snipers Grigonis or Kusminskas will have to catch fire if possible to hope knock down the red and yellow enemy.
The rosters
Spain: Dario Brizuela, Lorenzo Brown, Alberto Diaz, Jaime Fernandez, Rudy Fernandez, Usman Garuba, Juancho Hernangomez, Willy Hernangomez, Xabi Lopez-Arostegui, Joel Parra, Jaime Pradilla, Sebas Saiz
Lithuania: Ignas Brazdeikis, Arnas Butkevicius, Martynas Echodas, Rokas Giedraitis, Marius Grigonis, Rokas Jokubaitis, Mindaugas Kuzminskas, Lukas Lekavicius, Domantas Sabonis, Jonas Valanciunas, Kristupas Zemaitis, Eigirdas Zukauskas
The journey of the two teams
- Spain – Bulgaria: 114-87
- Spain – Georgia: 90-64
- Spain – Belgium : 73-83
- Spain – Montenegro : 82-65
- Spain – Turkey: 72-69
- Lithuania – Slovenia : 85-92
- Lithuania – France : 73-77
- Lithuania – Germany : 107-109
- Lithuania – Hungary: 87-64
- Lithuania – Bosnia: 87-70
No more Gasol, no Rubio or Llull, but those Spaniards continue to annoy everyone. Will we be made up in green, yellow and red tonight? It’s very likely. Will we stop ourselves from applauding La Roja in the event of a new big performance? Surely not. The immense shock of these round of 16 is tonight, at 8:45 p.m. in Berlin, and it looks VERY hot.
And to follow this match, we remind you that you will have to connect to… we don’t really know, maybe YouTube, maybe Dailymotion or the Skyrock blog. In short, we’ll manage, it’s not a very important match either, huh.
