Franz just drew a charge on ball. I forgot Theis was German. They really were missing almost all their NBA guys except Mo last summer at the Olympics. They have a solid squad though.
Packed crowd and fun game if you have a chance to check it out
Iggy played 15 minutes for Lithuania against Slovenia today. Had 8 points
Its good to see Schroeder be abhorrently unplayable in euroball too. (franz needs to dunk that break, not lay it up so Yabusele can stuff it)
edit: 23 minutes later - canāt stress how awful Schroeder is. It doesnāt matter because these two Alba Berlin guys are basically Shaq and Kobe
he hasnāt played well, but heās one of the only guys on the team that can dribble and heās played decent defense. Niels Giffey and Johannes Thiemann going off for 27 points on 13 shots is independent of any PG play and probably something they canāt count on moving forward
Big time ISO bucket for Franz over Fournier to push the lead to 12. Then hits Theis for a pick and pop. Game over.
Franz has gotten the Evan Fournier assignment most of the time and Fournier is 2/10. No Batum or de Colo for France has hurt them a lot
Well their other PG (who is form Worcester Mass and went to Colubmia) is on a 13/5 with 0 turnovers, so thatās relevant to PG play.
Iāve been surprised the degree to which Franz has been uninvolved offensively
Yeah he mostly was just in the corner. Was much more involved there at the end so maybe they can figure that out
Whew, Germany drew a tough group with France, Lithuania and Slovenia. Good thing Germany got the important win over France.
Iggy is playing for Lithuania too.
Since the acronym is just one letter different from FIFA this confused me initially and then reminded me of this favorite Onion headline:
āFIFA Retires Sepp Blatterās Routing Numberā
He is such a good basketball player! And so dang young.
Germany playing another team with a decent amount of NBA talent - Lithuania, who is strong up fron with Valunciunas (who Germany is struggling to handle) and Sabonisā¦they also have Ignas, but their primary wing scorer seems to be Mindaugas Kuzminskas (played for the Knicks a few years, a top tier European pro), who is simiarly framed to Franz. I think the most natural fit here is for these two to guard each other as theyāre sort of the only potential answer either team has (Kuzminskas scored 10 on 5 shots in the first half), but have resisted it to this point.
Franz dominated the first half, capping it off with back to back 3ās in the final two minutes to push their lead to 5.
He has 18 at the half on 7/11 shooting (2/4 from three), along with a few boards, and a block and a steal.
Ignas largely been silent - 0/2 from the floor.
Also - Schroeder on his third straight abominable game. (to be fair - he found Franz on two back-cuts for layups and has 4 dimes to 0 turnovers, he just needs to stop shooting, which he will never do).
** Q3 UPDATE
Wagner scores 11, committing horrific acts of Wolverine on Wolverine violence, repeatedly abusing Ignas, up to 29 points. Wagner also now has 3 triples off of dribbling around a pick with Lithuania going underā¦maybe they will stop doing that.
Ignas hit a 3 to complete a Lithuanian comeback to tie the game late in the third.
Germany has absolutely no answer for Valunciunas (23 points) and the foul-plagued Sabonis (13 points)
Schroeder is so bad.
Itās coming down to it - Lithuania has dominated the frontcourt, Germany the rest - 1 point game. Ignas with a big offensive rebound/putback/and-one to get within 1.
As Franz nails a three to stretch it to 7, I can report that they have not stopped going under screens when he is the ball-handler.
Huge play by Iggy late to rebound a missed free throw. Lithuania ties it up with a few seconds left.
That JV putback on Ignasā forced layup ties it up with 7 seconds - Franz got Thiemans a wide open 8 footer to make it a 2 possession game the possession prior, but he misses.
This game has REALLY been dominated by the NBA star on each team - Franz and Jonas. Theis fouls out - so JV will have some down-slope skiing if this goes to OT.
***HEADING TO OT
Franz with 32 on 19 shots, 4/7 from 3, 7 boards, 2 blocks, a steal
Ignas with 10 on 9 shots, but two big ones down the stretch (a 3, the and-one)
Schroeder seemed to realize he could take his woefully over-matched defender to the hoop at will towards the end thereā¦that could prove the difference.
**Heading to 2nd OT
Franz only took 2 shots - a blocked layup from JV, and a missed game-winner at the buzzer. If Schroeder could shoot, Franz would have at least 2 more assists.
Valunciunas (32 points, 15 shots) smearing the German frontcourt all over the floor.
Pretty questionable finish from Lithuania, facing a 2 point deficit with 15 seconds left, they run offense without calling a TO to ger Valunciunas on the floor (how you take that possession with your best player on the bench, I have no clue), and miss 2 shots to tie/win (one a Brazdeikis layup, but he had a really hard time finishing drives in this game). Lithuania now 0-3 by a total of 12 points.
Wagner finishes with 32 on 20 shots, held scoreless across 2 OTs, but clearly their best player on balance.
Ignas finishes with 12 on 14 shots - he missed a few threes down the stretch that seemed in and rattled out, that could have really made a difference.
Schroeder again a love it or leave it deal for Germany - when he got aggressive going towards the rim, he helped deliver Germany the game, but I could sure deal with way fewer off the dribble threes (2/10 from 3).
Overall a really fun game to watch - Lithuania probably one of the 5 best teams in the tournament, just getting a BRUTAL draw (Germany, France, Slovenia) and constantly coming up a tad short.
