Slovenia fell to its third loss in a row in the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 on Thursday night after an old problem surfaced once more.
Head coach Aleksander Sekulic admitted that depth, or lack thereof, was a reason why his wards bowed to Jonas Valanciunas and Lithuania, which ultimately relegated the crew to the 7-8 classification round on Saturday.
“Yes, we have a depth issue,” he said moments after their 100-84 defeat at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay. “Especially, we didn’t respond well to Valanciunas, who is an amazing player. We just let him play the way he wants to play.”
The fifth-year NBA forward finished with 24 points on 8-of-13 shooting from the floor and 12 rebounds, together with a steal and a block.
He definitely had his way and Sekulic could only lament the way they defended Valanciunas. But, it wasn’t just him alone who made it a long night for the Slovenians, a team that began the tourney with four straight wins.
Three more Lithuanians provided ample support to the New Orleans Pelicans enforcer. Ignas Brazdeikis delivered 15 points, while the duo of Mindaugas Kuzminskas and Deividas Sirvydis scored 14 apiece.
It’s worth mentioning as well that all but two players scored at least four points in the win, thanks to their 28 assists as a unit. That elite sharing of wealth ultimately enabled the unit to shoot 59.4-percent of their field goals.
As for Slovenia, four players did score in double figures led by Luka Doncic’s 29, majority of which he earned from the free throw line (11-of-16) as he only made seven of his 21 attempts from the floor — including a 4-of-13 clip from deep.
So, aside from not having enough manpower to cover Valanciunas and Co., Sekulic also found it hard to find — let alone defer — to another guy that could pick up the cudgels on a night their main man couldn’t wield his magic.
The 45-year-old bench tactician, though, offered that their offense isn’t actually much of a problem but rather their defense.
“We are challenged all the time,” he said when asked about Doncic being a point of attack by other teams defensively. “What the teams try to do is to isolate Luka from the team. Sometimes they trap, sometimes they send him deep inside.
“But I think we are handling it pretty well. I think offensively it’s not so much of a problem for us as it is right now defensively,” he added.
Although he isn’t making excuses, Sekulic said that fatigue was a factor why they were a step slow on D, since they were coming off a tough 100-89 quarterfinal loss to Canada about 24 hours prior to the classification.
Lithuania, on the other hand, had the luxury of respite as their quarters encounter against the now semis-bound Serbia took place last Tuesday.
“I think tonight was more or less… we were late on defense,” he said. “And being late on defense was also connected to the fatigue we have. On the other hand, Lithuania, they were fresh for this game.
“And, we let them perform the way they’ve been performing the whole tournament–they’ve played an amazing tournament. We have to be honest.”
