Spain Fails To Execute On Both Ends
Before the FIBA Worlds started, everyone was predicting that Spain would be the team to threaten Team USA and give them a run for their money once the tournament reached the round of 16. After a puzzling loss to France and a win, the Spanish team actually had themselves set up nicely, and if all went according to plan they would be facing Team USA in the Championship game. However, Lithuania threw everyone a curveball by beating Spain 76-73. While Lithuania did a terrific job coming back from double digits in the second half, and taking the lead late, a lot of this loss can be put on Spain’s errors on both ends of the court.
Defensively
Defensively Spain did a pretty good job of matching stops with Lithuania for most of the final two minutes. However, Lithuania was able to tie the game and score the eventual game winning basket (the one that gave them the lead for good) on two pretty bad defensive lapses:
Gasol’s Bad Pick And Roll Defense
Here, Lithuania runs a pick and roll with Marc Gasol’s man as the screener. Gasol is in good position on the show, but he bites on a pump fake and closes out too hard on the shooter. This leaves the roll man wide open for a pass and forces help from Ricky Rubio to come. The roll man does a fantastic job of quickly kicking the ball out for a wide open three point shot.
Now, onto the go-ahead basket:
On this possession, Lithuania tries to run a pick and roll with Linas Kleiza as the roll man. However, the play gets blown up and the ball ends up in Kleiza’s hands a good five feet behind the three point line. The man who kicked out the ball to Kleiza cuts behind him to give Lithuania some court balance.
