Poland, here we come!

February 07, 2012

Well, everyone, EuroBasket is finally here! I am sure that all of you are psyched to watch it as much as we, the players, are excited to play it. It seems like a long time since the pro season ended last spring and I was part of so many celebrations with Lietuvos Rytas. Our team won so many trophies - Baltic President's Cup, Baltic League, Lithuanian League, Lithuanian Cup and, of course, the Eurocup - that 2009 is already going to be a big part of my memories for a long time. Then, earlier this summer, I took on a new challenge by signing for two years with Armani Jeans Milano. Almost the same day, I started training with the Lithuanian national team to get ready for EuroBasket. Now that the tournament is here, I will be blogging every few days for Euroleague.net to tell you how it feels on the inside. I hope the blog will help you enjoy EuroBasket to the fullest!

For those of you who don't know me, this is my second time with the Lithuanian national team. The first time was at the last Olympics in Beijing, where despite losing out on the bronze medal in our last game, I had a fantastic experience. Some people are surprised when the find out I am almost 30 and two years ago was my first time on the national team. But that is probably due to the fact that I started playing organized basketball a lot later than other guys. I had grown up playing street ball, but didn't get on a team, really, until I was 17 years old. I have been improving and learning ever since, and I feel that I am doing both still every day. I had a few setbacks, and I played with all kinds of teams, but to me all that part of my career helps give me an extra push to improve and take on new challenges. It's a process, and so far I have played on a Euroleague team, won a Eurocup trophy, was MVP of the Final Eight, and been to the Olympics. I am almost 30, yes, but I am still going strong and see a lot of room for improvement in myself. I am excited to play basketball every day, and now being with the national team again, excited to try to make Lithuania proud of us at EuroBasket.

Of course, our national team coaches - like many others - say there is never enough time to prepare. But we started near the beginning of July with our camps, and I think we've done the work necessary. A lot of our preparation games were on the road. We went to Spain and played there against the home team, England and Slovenia. Of course, deciding to travel for these friendly games makes them harder - teams always have it easier at home - but we did pretty well. EuroBasket is not at home, so my feeling is you might as well prepare away. We lost to Spain in a blowout, however, and had to recover from that. We went straight to Greece from Spain and played Russia, Serbia and Greece. All in all, that made for six good preparation games. We won some, we lost some. But it all played to our advantage to play six tough teams away.

Thursday was our last game, Spain again, at home in Vilnius. We had only played on other home game, against Russia in another city a few days before that, but even though they are defending EuroBasket champs, the Spanish game was the big one. First, it was because that was our last preparation game, and it was here in the capital, so it was kind of the like the fans were saying goodbye to us as we leave to play the championship. But, of course, they wanted to see a very good Spanish team, too. Everyone wanted a good basketball experience, the fans and the whole city, and that's why there was so much excitement for the game and so many people watching it. All the players on both sides would agree that there was a great atmosphere. The gym was full with 11,000 passionate fans. It reminded me of Euroleague game with Lietuvos Rytas, but the difference is that this crowd came from all over the country. We were able to win this time by a big score over Spain, so in that sense, we can say we have improved with our training and are at least ready to face what is coming in Poland, starting Monday.

This year there were a lot of player changes on our national team, especially with younger players coming in. Everyone has talked about us having point guard problems, but we have younger guys who can really play. True, we've had some turnover problems as they get used to big responsibilities on the national team, always going against the other team's high-level players. But our coaches are talking all the time about keeping turnovers down, and I think we are going in the right direction. We started off playing one good game, one not-so-good one, but we seem to be stabilizing now.

I think this EuroBasket will be very interesting. There are a lot of high-level teams. A lot of people favor the Spanish team, and I agree they are good and playing well, with 12 very good players. After the Spanish team, though, there are a lot of very good teams, too. That will make for a very interesting tournament. Of course, if we can compete for medals, that would be good for the Lithuanian national team, considering all the changes on our team. So medals are what we're after, sure. But right now we'll take it a game at a time, take care of business in our first group, and see how it goes. Two weeks is time for a lot of games, so it's too early to plan for medals. After we get a few games under our belt, I'll come back and tell you where things stand. Wish us luck!

POSTED BY

Marius Petravicius, Vilnius

DATE:

Friday, September 04, 2009