Los Angeles Lakers guard Austin Reaves and Team USA have looked great so far in the FIBA World Cup, although that wasn’t the case on Sunday morning as they suffered their first loss at the hands of Lithuania, 110-104.
As has been the case all tournament, Team USA came out slow due to hot-shooting from Lithuania. This time though, the Americans weren’t able to come back despite a nice effort in the second half.
Anthony Edwards did what he could, pouring in a game-high 35 points on 14-of-26 shooting to go along with one rebounds, two assists, three steals and a block.
For the first time all tournament, Reaves and the second unit struggled as the Lakers guard had just seven points on 1-of-4 shooting in limited minutes. While Reaves made all five of his 3-point attempts, he constantly found himself in mist=matches down in the post on the other end of the floor and the result was him fouling out.
Meanwhile for Lithuania, it was a balanced scoring effort as they had seven players in double figures and two more with nine points. As a team, they shot 56% from 3-point range (14-of-25) while out-rebounding Team USA 43-27.
Lithuania jumped out to a big lead early, going ahead 31-12 at the end of one quarter due to their hot shooting. They stretched that lead to 52-31 early in the second quarter and took a comfortable 54-37 lead into the halftime locker room.
Whatever Team USA talked about at halftime seemed to have worked as they came out and went on a 13-2 run to begin the third quarter to get back within striking distance. Ultimately though, the Lithuanians continued to hit big shots to be able to hang on for the victory.
Vaidas Kariniauskas led Lithuania off the bench with 15 points on 5-of-7 shooting to go along with five rebounds and three assists while Jonas Valanciunas contributed 12 points, seven rebounds and a pair of blocks.
Only three other USA players were in double figures outside of Edwards with Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges each scoring 14 while Brandon Ingram had 10 off the bench.
Next up for Reaves and Team USA…
Despite the loss to Lithuania, Team USA has not been eliminated from the FIBA World Cup as they still advanced to the quarterfinals where they will take on Italy on Tuesday at 5:40 a.m. PT on ESPN 2.
If they are able to win that game then they will take on the winner of Germany vs. Latvia in the semifinals.
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