Rio Basketball: Nigeria loses narrowly to Lithuania

Nigeria’s senior male basketball team, the D’Tigers early Wednesday morning suffered their second defeat at the ongoing 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil after losing narrowly to European giant, Lithuania.

The D’Tigers were understrength but they gave as good as they got against powerhouse Lithuania, only for the Baltic side to ride a strong third quarter to an 89-80 victory.

With Jonas Maciulis rising to the occasion and scoring 13 of his 21 points in the third period when Lithuania outscored the AfroBasket 2015 winners 29-13, the European team went from trailing by 5 at half-time to leading 65-54 heading into the final frame.

Nigeria, who lost big man Shane Lawal to injury in Sunday’s defeat to Argentina and also lost Michael Gbinije to an illness, continued to play well on the offensive end but could not get enough stops on defense and fell to 0-2.

Captain Ike Diogu scored 19 points and point guard Michael Umeh, 17, for D’Tigers.

The turning point in the game came as Lithuania battled hard and took the lead for good midway through the third quarter when Maciulis hit one of his three 3-pointers on the night. The basket started a 12-0 run with Maciulis scoring 7 points in that stretch.

Nigeria really showed what they are made of, overcoming the adversity of losing Shane Lawal and battling hard against one of the giants of international basketball.

Either Mantas Kalnietis, who turned on the style for the second game in a row, scoring 21 points and dishing out 12 assists, or Maciulis, who did most of his damage in the 3rd Quarter when Lithuania landed the telling blows.

Diogu led Nigeria with 19 points and seven rebounds while Michael Umeh added 17.

Lithuania, 2-0, next faces Argentina while Nigeria meet fellow winless side Spain, the Group B preliminary round favourites before stumbling against Croatia and Brazil.

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