CARACAS, Venezuela — Lithuania won a trip to its sixth straight Olympic basketball tournament with a 109-83 romp over the Dominican Republic on Saturday, while Russia also booked a trip to London by holding off a surprisingly strong Nigeria 85-77.
The Dominicans and Nigeria — the event’s Cinderella team —
will play off on Sunday for the final London Games spot on offer at this
FIBA qualifying tournament.
The Lithuanians’ stymied the
Dominicans’ inside and ran away with the contest with fast breaks after
entering the final quarter up 75-61.
Jonas Maciulis had 19 points for Lithuania followed by Jonas Valanciunas of the NBA’s Toronto Raptors with 17.
Dominican
center Yack Martinez was largely shut down often but still led his team
with 13 points, Al Horford of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks had 12.
Lithuania took bronze in three straight Olympics — 1992, 1996 and 2000 — and finished fourth in Athens and Beijing.
“It
was a tough tournament but we came here to do what we had to do,” said
Linas Kleiza of the NBA’s Toronto Raptors. “We came here and didn’t play
well before this tournament but we get better with every game.”
Lithuania’s
Olympic pedigree meant it was expected to secure one of the top three
spots here, but guard Martynas Pocius said the tournament was far from
easy.
“There were some really good teams, powerhouses like Russia
and Greece, but other teams that we had to face including home team
Venezuela and Puerto Rico are really strong teams,” Pocius said.
In Saturday’s earlier game, Alexey Shved had 22 points and six assists for Russia followed by Andrey Kirilenko with 19 points.
“This game was very, very tough. Nigeria fought to the end, ” said Kirilenko.
The Nigerians outrebounded Russia 29-24 with Ike Diogu pulling down 14 for the losers.
Diogu and guard Ade Dagunduro led Nigerian scorers with 16 points each.
Russia
was the only team to win all four of its games in the tournament,
including a 91-65 trouncing of South Korea and an 84-69 defeat of the
Dominicans.
It beat Angola 80-65 in the quarterfinals.
Nigeria
was the big surprise of the 12-team tournament, edging 2006 world
championship silver medalist Greece 80-79 in a quarterfinal and earlier
upsetting Lithuania 86-80 in Group B.
That result eliminated the host team Venezuela.
The Dominicans reached the semifinals by upsetting Macedonia 86-76 in their quarterfinal, while Lithuania beat Puerto Rico 76-72.
The
winner of Sunday’s playoff will join 11 already-qualified teams in
London: Spain, France, Argentina, Brazil, Britain, China, Australia,
Tunisia, the United States, Lithuania and Russia.
