Serbia will face reigning champions Russia in a quarter-final tomorrow after downing Lithuania 89-79 in their last game of the second round at Eurobasket 2009.
Lithuanian players and coach once again promised to put on a good fight on the court and eventually they did that for almost the whole game. Though Serbians had the last say as they hit 6 three-point shots in a row to take a double digit lead for the first time in the game.
Ramunas Butautas publicly stepped down as the head coach of Lithuania after the game taking full responsibility for the poor showing of his team in Eurobasket 2009. It was the worst Eurobasket performance by a basketball-mad country in its history as the team won just a single game out of six games played.
Meanwhile young and at the same time already experienced Serbian squad battled well to reach the quarter-finals and will be hoping of going even further as they already defeated their opponents, Russia, this summer in Acropolis tournament in Athens.
79 – Lithuania – (19+18+24+18): *Jonas Maciulis 20, Darjus Lavrinovic 13, *Marijonas Petravicius 13, *Ksystof Lavrinovic 12, Linas Kleiza 11, *Tomas Delininkaitis 4, *Arturas Jomantas 4, Robertas Javtokas 2.
89 – Serbia – (23+18+22+26): *Milos Teodosic 20, *Nenad Krstic 16, *Novica Velickovic 16, *Uros Tripkovic 14, *Milenko Tepic 13, Nemanja Bjelica 3, Kosta Perovic 3, Novica Velickovic 3, Miroslav Raduljica 1.
