New Zealand vs. Lithuania: Score and Twitter Reaction from 2014 FIBA World Cup
Lithuania survived a difficult test against New Zealand and advanced to the FIBA World Cup quarterfinals with a 76-71 win.
Jonas Valanciunas was the star of the game, finishing with 22 points, 13 rebounds and three blocked shots in a winning effort.
Corey Webster had a strong showing for New Zealand with 26 points, although he did not get enough help around him to pull off the upset.
It did not seem like this game would even be close in the early going. Valanciunas was key to a red-hot start for Lithuania as the Group D winners were up double digits within the first few minutes, as noted by Joseph Casciaro of The Score:
Kimberlee Downs of TVNZ noted things did not get much better early on for New Zealand, which went down 14 points in the first quarter:
The Tall Blacks fared better in the second quarter to get the score to 36-26 at halftime, but Eurohoops.net pointed out the squad was overmatched inside:
Jeff Taylor of FIBA provided more praise for Lithuania's best player:
The problem was that the favorites could not put New Zealand away. An offensive outburst with some good outside shooting helped the Kiwis remain in the game going into the fourth quarter, as Brian Mahoney of The Associated Press described:
This narrow lead quickly evaporated as New Zealand scored the first nine points of the fourth quarter to take a 59-58 lead. Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun explained the problem:
The two sides battled back and forth for the majority of the fourth quarter with the game very much up in the air. In the end, though, it was Lithuania that made the big shots down the stretch, including a three-pointer by Jonas Maciulis with just over a minute left to go up seven.
Thanks to some strong free-throw shooting Lithuania was able to hold on and escape with the narrow win.
New Zealand was confident coming into the round of 16 game despite sneaking into the knockout stage with a 2-3 record. According to Brenton Vannisselroy of The New Zealand Herald, head coach Nenad Vucinic explained his team's mindset:
"If you take out [the] States and probably Spain at home, every other team is beatable, if we play well. If we don't play well, we've got no chance. We believe that we're in a good mental state now.
We have to recover physically after those last two games and hopefully we'll come ready to play.
"
Unfortunately, his team's run came to an end after a hard-fought loss against a very talented team. The good news is there was still plenty to like in this tournament and the squad can certainly be a medal contender in the future.
Meanwhile, Lithuania continues to impress and will now face the winner of Turkey and Australia in the quarterfinals. Although this road eventually leads to a likely matchup against the United States, this team is good enough to bring home a medal.
If this group continues to play at this level, even a gold is not out of the realm of possibility.
Follow Rob Goldberg on Twitter for the latest breaking news and analysis.
