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First round of the 2013 FIBA Eurobasket, Serbia and Lithuania are in Group B along with Bosnia, Latvia, Macedonia and Montenegro. Both teams should go trough, but the group is not easy.
Serbia is missing 7 of their best players for this tournament, including star point guard Milos Teodosic or Zoltan Erceg. The serbs still have a pretty strong squad, with the likes of Nenad Krstic and Nemanja Nedovic, but they will have to rely more on cohesion and tactical approach since the roster is clearly inferior to the better teams in this tournament. It will be very tough for them against the big names.
Lithuania is one of the few teams which brought their best players for this EuroBasket, their only big missing being veteran PG Jasikevicius. They can fight for medals without a problem, as they have superstars like Valanciunas, Kleiza or Motiejunas in the roster. Lithuania has always been a basketball powerhorse in the last decade and at the moment they seem to have an outside chance of even winning this tournament, a thing which was also stated by the Belgium national team coach. They posses a great mix of youth and experience, they have NBA talent, most of the players have played together in a long time, they are very dangerous.
With all of their missings, the serbians are left to rely mostly on the frontcourt led by Krstic. Their problem today is that Lithuania is devastating in frontcourt with Valanciunas, Motiejunas, Javtokas, Lavrinovic brothers and even Kleiza. Lithuania has both more quality and more depth in the paint. In these conditions, Serbia won`t be able to use it`s only world class weapon and will have to put their trust in a very fragile backcourt, who can’t really produce at this level.
Expect Lithuania to run the show under the paint and win the hugely important rebounding battle. The guards are pretty evenly matched, but the boys in green have a slight advantage here also. All in all, the frontcourt battle and the second chance points Lithuania will get should make the difference in this one.
Lithuania is a clear favorite today and they should beat Serbia by at least 8-10 points after dominating at least 3 out of 4 quarters. They are better both in the backcourt and in the frontcourt, they would be favorites even against a Serbian team at full strength. With class, experience and match-up on their side, the baltic side are set to start these championships with a confident win against a weakened opponent.
Pick: Lithuania -5,5
Odds: 1.93 @ Pinnacle
Stake: 7
Possible profit: 6.51
Event date: 4 September
