Fearless predictions: 2010 FIBA World Championship, day four

August 31, 2010

Air Martynas!

Sorry folks, a bit short on time today, but after a perfect 6-0 showing in the official BallinEurope 2010 FIBA World Championship Fearless Predictions™, how could BiE leave you hanging?

With two excellent games going down yesterday (Sheesh, who knew a team that gave up 75 points to Jordan could defend?) in the Slovenia-Croatia sharpshooting bonanza and the USA-Brazil thriller that surely had American fans at least slightly nervous throughout – and all this, as they say, without Anderson Varejao.

Tonight’s two could-be-classics were meanly scheduled by FIBA to go down at the same time: At 8pm CET (2pm EST), Euroball fans get to choose between Spain-Lithuania and Greece-Turkey – BiE’s set to click back and forth, lemme tell ya.

Despite the brilliance of tournament revelation Martynas Pocius for Team Lithuania, BiE believes Spain is still playing as though “fighting for its life” and that’s an ornery beast to be desperate – particularly with Robertas Javtokas reportedly to sit out tonight’s game. Spain over Lithuania by 10.

Meanwhile, full-strength Greece takes on home team Turkey for the lead in Group C. BiE’s betting that the free day plus those extra days off for Sofoklis Schortsanitis and Antonis Fotsis work in Hellas’ favor: Greece over Turkey.

Aaaand in the other matches, BiE’s saying Russia over Cote d’Ivoire, France nips Canada, Puerto Rico beats China to stay alive in Group C, and New Zealand juuuust beats Lebanon in the night’s highest-scoring game. (Who else can’t wait to see the Kirk Penney-Fadi El Khatib scoring battle?)

Aug 31, 2010ballineurope

This post was published on August 31, 2010

Comments: 12

milaz
15 years ago
“plus those extra days off for Sofoklis Schortsanitis and Milos Teodosic work in Hellas’ favor:”

You mean and Antonis Fotsis right?
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- Os Davis
  15 years ago
  @ Milaz: Yes, that’s what i meant. Thanks for the heads up; correction made.
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radallo
15 years ago
“Despite the brilliance of tournament revelation Martynas Pocius for Team Lithuania”

Martynas had up&down all season long for Zalgiris.. after some good friendly matches he had a quite normal opener in the large win against the kiwis
http://www.acb.com/redaccion.php?id=69824
and a better second game against Canada.

…isn’t it a little bit to early for that statment??.. he’s not even the youngster in the roster..

My fearless prediction: another Martynas (class 1988) will have a great game tonight!

Anyway.. goodluck both Martynas
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Auggie
15 years ago
Aaaaarghhhh…..noooooooo….you picked France, that’s going to jinx us, you picked against them for their first 2 games and they won.
Hope you’re right this time, otherwise I’m going to have to ask you to never pick France to win for the rest of the tournament 😉

Auggie – French fan.
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Tomas
15 years ago
I think Turks will selebrate victory on home soil to night. But i’m looking forwoard to tomorow. Probably it’ll be the most intresting day of group maches.
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Teo
15 years ago
Boy,oh boy did the Turks ever whup our asses tonight…
It may be the first time in years and it’s not all THAT significant, but it sure hurts.
They hit their shots and we didn’t play any D, so congrats to them for doing their duty and making their fans happy as a hostnation. But I wonder what is going on with our team…. why are we playing this pathetic kind of ball since that Serbia match? Something is rotten in the state of Denmark…and these spaniards lost on purpose I guess because we are so rubbish that they will have a party before they have to play us. I want Vasiliadis in our next NT, we need a shooter and I want Sofo and Fotsis to freakin’ dunk. JUST DUNK THAT BALL!!!
Greece…-expect layups. I feel like the wnba right now…
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- milaz
  15 years ago
  First of all our center shot 7 three pointers!! He made three but still…. Sofo fouled out and we shot about 31% 3FGs…. Turkey had Ilyasova on a great day, played solid D (of course when we shoot more #s than 2s…. and miss around 70% of them… we made things easy) …. This is still the group stage…. Greece will still make it to the knockout stage and hopefully the will stop shooting so many dreadful threes….!
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MISTERGREEN
15 years ago
aaah 2 bad predictions once again , Turkey and Lithuania the best :)))
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Teo
15 years ago
knockout stage against spain means the end, because these fellas are scared shitless of spain beause spain is our nemesis. and they will not stop shooting threes while people use the zone against us and we have nothing against the zone, because we play with the mind too much and tend to forget that passing gives you no points if you don’t shoot. I am terribly upset, not by the fact that we lost, but by the way we have performed this far. It is just clearly sub-par and any good team will beat us with this pathetic defensive effort….
And where was this coach of ours, where were his timeouts early in the game when we were trash? And I will also be 6/6 on 3s if I can shoot free all day, Ilyasova just did what any sane person would do given so much space. beaten by a team that has no structure whatsoever, it makes me cringe…
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- milaz
  15 years ago
  You know what sucks Teo, we also had free 3-pointers and missed… we had 30something% on 3-pointers… I mean come on! Alright, to break a zone you need to make outside shots… but if you are missing so many… ! Isn’t it time to move the ball inside… Bourousis has moves near the basket and shoots 8 3s (it turns out it was 8 not 7)…. If they continue like this yes… we will be out in the knockout stage, but I need to remind you that like in all similar tournaments… the group stage is irrelevant (for the most part)…. If you win in the knockout stage (one game at a time) you are good and against each opponent you have pluses and minuses – Turkey had homecourt as a big plus… the issue is if we are 2nd, or 3rd we will play the 1st (most likely) of groups A and B in the quarter-finals which means Argentina or US… still though… it’s one game 🙂 and we have done that before, and we have even won the Euro after losing a game and playing badly in the group stage…. and this year in the World Cup, Spain lost their first game and won the tournament…. it is a 2 week tournament with knockout games…. ANYTHING can happen… but we do need to shape up (and stop shooting so many freaking threes!!!)
  
  Lithuania comeback from 18pts against Spain….!!! Amazing… Good job…
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AM
15 years ago
And how about the comeback for Lithuania from the 18 point journey? 🙂
I hope to read the report tomorrow BiE 😉
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Tomas
15 years ago
Hey! You were right. Air MArtynas did great to night.
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