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Lithuania dished up Serbia their first loss on Friday night, 67-64, to move into the EuroBasket 2015 gold medal game.

It is a second consecutive appearance in the EuroBasket final for the Lithuanians and they will now face Spain, who went past host nation France 80-75 24 hours earlier. 

Lithuania have made a habit of taking games down to the wire, and they were not about to change that formula on Friday in Lille, France.

When Mindaugas Kuzminskas made his first points on the Friday night to give Lithuania an 11-point lead at 28-17, it appeared the game may be a one-sided encounter. 

But the tenacious Serbs fought back, showing why they were undefeated up to that stage, and were still in the game up to the final seconds when Milos Teodosic sunk a three to make it a one-point game with 15 seconds to play. 

However, with no shortage of experience in such situations, Lithuania held tight, sealing the game from the charity stripe. 

“We want to show that we are not in the final by accident,” expressed Kuzminskas following the game.

“We are showing that Lithuanian basketball is great even when we miss good players, even if Linas Kleiza, Donatas Motiejūnas or Martynas Pocius are not playing we can do something good. It shows the strength of Lithuanian basketball.”

His head coach Jonas Kazlauskas was left pondering what the public reaction to Lithuania’s win would be. 

"Before EuroBasket 2013 they were saying we had a good team but not great players. When we reached the semi-finals in 2014 [at the FIBA Basketball World Cup] they said we had an easy schedule. I don’t know what they will say now,” Kazlauskas said.

The victory last night has not only open the doors to the European gold but also granted Lithuania a ticket to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, Brazil. According to the rules, both gold and silver winners of the European championship ...go

For Lithuanian basketball team, this will be the seventh performance in a row in the Olympics since Lithuania reestablished independence in 1990.

Out of the seven performances, Lithuania has won Olympic bronze trice and was number four twice. 

Lithuania will meet Spain for the final match on Sunday, September 20, at 8:00 pm Central European Time (11:30 pm Indian Standard Time).

Symbolically, last time the two teams faced each other in Stockholm in 2003, when Lithuania overwhelmed the Spanish team and won its 3rd European gold.

Live streaming of the Sunday’s game will be available on the EuroBasket2015.org website.

Source: EuroBasket2015