Slovenia vs Lithuania Prediction: the Reigning Champions to Start with a Defeat?

Slovenia and Lithuania will be the main game of the first game of the European Basketball Championship. Will Luka Doncic get the upper hand against Jonas Valanciunas and Domantas Sabonis? 

The Slovenian team is the reigning EuroBasket winner, and Luka Doncic was only 18 years old when he won the title. Doncic is one of the brightest essential players in the NBA, and the Slovenians have a solid claim to winning the Continental Championships due to him. Goran Dragic just recently restarted his career with the national team, and another representative of the world's strongest league, Vlatko Ciancar, also helps the Slovenians well on offense. There's also shooting guard Mike Toby, who recently moved to Barcelona, and a few other role players like Klement Prepelic and Jaka Blazic, who should also be noted.

Thanks to Doncic and Dragic, the Slovenian national team improved their position in qualifying for the World Cup: 3 wins in 4 rounds. Croatia, Estonia, and Sweden lost, but the excellent series against Germany ended - 71:90. From the beginning of the meeting with the Germans, the play of Aleksander Sekulic's charges did not go well, and Doncic took on too much responsibility at times. The Slovene side sometimes failed to move the ball well, although the coach's time-outs did work in the first half. The Slovenian squad frequently lost the rebounding battle, and Mike Tobey lacked the size to contend with his opponent's big men. The Germans grabbed 20 offensive rebounds, which was almost the critical factor. Doncic made 7 of 16 shots from the field and was the most productive player on the team with 23 points. Other than Luca, only Toby had at least 10 points, and the rest had even fewer.

The Lithuanians have reached the Eurobasket finals twice in the last ten years, but in 2013 and 2015, they settled for silver. In the previous two top tournaments (World Cup 2019 and European Championship 2017), the team finished 9th and did not qualify for the Olympics in Tokyo. Nevertheless, the Lithuanian team is capable of a shot, and the progress of its leaders is very encouraging. Jonas Valanciunas has played the last two seasons at the NBA level, while Domantas Sabonis has been improving at least a bit, and Rokas Jokubaitis has earned the Euroleague Rising Star Award. The Lithuanian roster also includes Mindaugas Kuzminskas and Ignas Breizdeikis, who've played in the best league in the world. Most of our national team's players are in good standing with European clubs.

Kazys Maksvytis's charges have won 9 straight this summer, including 2 World Cup qualifying matches. The Lithuanians had twice defeated the national teams of Estonia, Finland, and Spain in friendly matches and then in official games overcame the Hungarians (88:78) and the Montenegrins (90:73). Already by the beginning of the 4th quarter of the game against Montenegro the Lithuanian national team almost decided the outcome in their favor. Their main stars didn't have to spend much time on the floor. Valanciunas and Sabonis combined for 11 of 19 shots on goal, with Panathinaikos guard Marius Grigonis leading the scoring with 16 points.

The Lithuanians swept away everything in their path before the Eurobasket began, and even the Spanish team was no match for Sabonis and company. The Baltic team's players have improved all year long, and the change of coaches has impacted the outcome. Holding off the big men from Slovenia will not be easy; they've already experienced plenty of trouble against the big-name Germans. The European champions also had problems against Estonians, so everything won't so rosy for the hosts. 

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