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Casteels: We have to play against them like we did in the second game of preparations

Belgium lost 66-53 then, having lost by -25 the day before. The Belgians gave Serbia a hard time with their combination of zone and man-to-man defense and were only down by 2 points with some 2 minutes to go

Lithuania is continuing to fluctuate in their performances, after a tragic performance against Bosnia,where they were a minute away from packing their bags and a total fiasco, they showed their 'other side of the medal' yesterday. Assured performance, superb defense and a quality shooting performance for beating Parker and France by 14 points.

Serbia now has 3-0 in this group, Lithuania and France have 2-1, Latvia and Ukraine have 1-2, and Belgium has 0-3. Lithuania could get into the quarter-finals if they manage to beat Belgium and Ukraine, which is not completely unrealistic, which means they could be fighting for the first spot, or even second. This might bring them Spain, but it's better to think about them when and if they come.

Linas Kleiza scored 20 points against Bosnia. He wasn't so efficient against France, but was still solid. His rating for this game was +20. He scored 11 points, had 7 rebounds, and 3 assists. He also scored some important 3-pointers. At 35-31, he and Maciulis had two consecutive 3-pointers for +10 and France never got the chance to return to the game after that.

- We are very happy to win against a very good team, one of the favorites on this tournament. But the competition has only begun. We have to forget about this victory - said coach Jonas Kazlauskas. 

- We did a solid job in the defense. We kept them at 62 points. Stopping Parker was hard, and we tried to do that with team play.

They did do that for the most part, as Parker had only 11 points and was not on the court in the last quarter as everything was settled. Controlling Parker was the most difficult thing, and when they managed to do that, controlling the rebounds against this France is not a too big of a problem (37-36), especially when you have the Lavrinovic brothers, Valanciunas and Javtokas in your team (Motiejunas only played for 4 minutes). Even though their 3-point efficiency was only 4/19, they came in when it mattered the most. We mentioned the two 3's by Maciulis and Kleize, while Kalnietis did not have the best day, 0/4 for 3 points, but he did get 8 points, 7 assists and 6 rebounds, which proves his versatility. The Lithuanian point guard played another 34 minutes. He is one of the players with the biggest playing time on this tournament. 

- We have to beat Belgium, otherwise the win against France won't matter much - said Linas Kleiza, adding that the team has plenty of back-up players.

- This goes for me as well, but it mostly refers to the attack, but everything will be alright soon. We haven't been too good lately, but our defense is secure. We have lots of back-up player. We will start playing in the middle of some match and things will go much more smoothly - said Fener's new player.

- Many will laugh when we say we are playing against Belgium, but they are playing good basketball and they deserve to be in round two.

They played two games in the preparations against them in early August, they won 86-61, and the other 66-53.

- We have to analyze what has changed since then and how they came to round two - Kleiza was apprehensive.

Belgia threatened Serbia the whole game, and came to 63-56 with only 158 seconds to go with a lay-up fro Van Rossom. But Markovic scored a 3-pointer then and then 2 free throws and put this game to bed. The positive aspect o their game was their solid transition from zone to man-to-man defense. They opened the game with the zone, had 10-3 lead and an unimaginative Serbia against them. But it is hard to play zone for the entire game, Markovic tore them apart with his three-point shots. They nullified the Serbian center with zone defense, and it is very plausible they will try the same recipe against Lithuania, at least in some segments of the game. Lithuania has better 3-point shooters than Serbia, but they haven't been successful at that here (34/109 31 %). Belgium have only 35 % 3-point accuracy, and 14 turnovers per game, and only 42 % two-point accuracy.

When they switched to man-to-man, Nenad Krstic became the master of the court and the main man of this match (17 points). Lithuania is very strong in the paint, even stronger than Serbia and this is in reality a much more difficult matchup for Belgium. 

- Serbia's victory was completely deserved. It was important for us to show how we got to round two. I am happy to look at the score in the last quarter and say we were in the game until the very end  - coach Eddy Casteels was very modest. 

- We showed our way for the future, we will do the same against Lithuania who are much stronger than young Serbia. Lithuania has more experience. We have to play against them as we did in the second preparation game, which was very tied until the very last minute. Just like the game against Serbia.

In two preparation matches Belgians scored 53 and 61 against Lithuania. Lithuanians take very few points here, two days ago team France with Parker only scored 62 against them. This victory will be meaningless if they lose today, so we will see a motivated Lithuanian team. This is a defensive team, with some great strategies, from Kalnietis´ play, to Marcus, one of the best defensive players on the tournament, and I have to mention the tall Javtokas and Valanciunas. Belgians dont have the power to break through such defenses, and could end up with less than 60 points scored.