Lithuania booked their place at this month’s Oympic Games following a comfortable 109-83 win over the Dominican Republic in Caracas.
It was a professional, all-round performance from the Baltic nation whose simple pick-and roll offence was too much for the Dominican players to handle as they were picked apart defensively.
Lithuania’s scoring was well spread with Jonas Maciulis leading the way with 19 points, coming off the bench and Toronto Raptors draftee Jonas Valanciunas adding 17.
Dominican Republic still have a chance to book their place at the London Games, but will have to beat Nigeria in the final game on Sunday evening. Jack Martinez led with a double-double of 13 points and 10 rebounds as he kept up his record of securing a double-double in all of his side’s qualifying games.
It was the Dominicans that started brightly, but offensively, they were woeful allowing Lithuania to score at will as they led 21-16 after the first ten minutes.
At that point, Lithuania went up a gear and turned on the style, going 9/13 from the field in the second quarter, scoring 31 points in the process as they led 52-36 at the half.
The Lithuanians were in cruise control at this point, but the Caribbean side found an opening and capitalised but they still had it all to do in the fourth quarter, trailing to the much-fancied European side 75-61.
Lithuania though were too good and romped to victory by scoring 34 points in the last quarter to secure victory.
