BuzzerBeater Forums

Cheers, enjoyed it too. Thanks for stopping by ;).

Thanks man, really appreciate that. Was nice to see so many people from both nations. Close games are always good but obviously I didn't enjoy it as much as you. You have a very good team, you'll also be doing us a huge favour if you go and beat Finland in a couple of weeks.

You have a very good team, you'll also be doing us a huge favour if you go and beat Finland in a couple of weeks. :D

It depends on our gameshapes, but I'll try my best :)

ENGLAND HOPES HANGING BY A THREAD AFTER SECOND CLOSE LOSS
We got off to a great start for once, leading by 10 at one point in the first quarter, but I never felt that Lithuania were beaten. I was fairly confident we were going to win, but didn't think we'd keep up that kind of pace. Sadly that turned out to be all too true. Another poor second quarter saw Lithuania go in ahead at the half. I prediced then that we'd be level after three quarters, in fact we were one ahead at that point. But sadly my prediction that we'd be too strong in the fourth was not correct. Most of the fourth quarter saw us either ahead by 1 or behind by 1, until with less than four minutes to go they scored, we missed, and they scored again to create a four point lead. I didn't think that was the end of the game, but it did prove insurmountable for us.

Lithuania are a strong team, but I don't feel they were unbeatable. We came up short and I think we can all see that the game shape this week was unquestionably the best of the season. I think I've come up short again in getting the best out of the players, especially by creating a situation where Innes played far too long.

Marshall top scored with 25. He and Sharpling led assits with 5, and MacAusland led rebounding with 15, despite only playing 21 minutes.

This leaves us in a very precarious position within the group. We no longer control our own destiny, but since its not impossible to qualify we need to keep going. Obviously we can't afford another loss so that makes things rather simple for us. Perhaps not simple, less complicated is probably better. We do need other results to go our way, I won't say which, but its fairly clear.

Credit to all the managers for the game shape this week.

Credit to you for choosing a team to compete with a very strong nation as well as a kudos to the managers of the players for maintaining great game shape. I think we can all agree England is moving in the right direction and hopefully we'll be beating the likes of Lithuania in seasons to come.

The game was within one point (up or down) until the last minute, despite a couple of 3 pointers in a row that could have killed us. It's disappointing that 2 games didn't go our way, I'm sure Gully is more disappointed than we are. You need a bit of luck sometimes. Now it's extremely difficult to qualify, but never say never, Estonia nearly beat Finland today, so it's reasonable to expect they will be a very tough opponent both for us and Lithuania.

I'll keep training Innes for his poor shooting... it's his major weakness for sure ;)

Honestly to have the only 2 games we have lost for a total of 5 points difference, it is harsh that we have come so close. I'll get back to the grindstone and see what I can do to pull my boys up by the bootstraps and hone them even further. If Tata capitalises on my PF's weak shooting this week then I'll be able to round them off without the tournament competitive games to worry about.

HAPLESS ENGLISH HUMILIATED BY FLYING FINNS
Regardless of how we played, or what I might have done differently today, Finland are obviously a very good team. Far better than the teams we faced at the same stage in the last Euros. Though our game shape wasn't quite as good this week, I suspect the Finns are better than Lithuania as well.

Things were going against us from the very start. Finland raced to an early lead, barely missing a shot. A start that was to be repeated in the second half. In the second quarter we seemed to play better for much of it, though they were stronger than us by the end of the half.

The twelve point lead didn't look like ever being overturned and especially when the third quarter started like the first we did look in trouble. In fact the third quarter ended up being our worst, with us ending it being 24 behind. Something we're just not used to.

We did get a little respectability back by reducing the deficit to 20 in the 4th but frankly it didn't help a lot. We were embarrassed tonight, and frankly, well and truly exposed.

I have to say, though we had a mathematical chance of qualifying before today, it required us to overcome a huge deficit in points difference, so it was never very likely.

I did say at the beginning of the season that a repeat of two seasons ago would certainly be a failure. We haven't qualified, we can still do better than the last Euros, but this is still a failure.

The stats make fairly unpleasant reading but for what its worth, Innes and Simpson top scored with 16, Innes led assists with 7, narrowly topping Sharpling's 6, and Simpson and MacAusland had the most rebounds, with 7 each. Not many but there weren't an awful lot of missed shots.

Their passing blew us out of this game. Our defense didn't look good enough, which obviously makes Estonia's effort last week against them very interesting. Estonia guessed both GDPs and that indicates they thought they were clear underdogs and that the game shouldn't have been close. It might be a fluke or it might be the different tactics used, but despite a similar number of assists they did contain the Finnish frontline which had a field day against us.

In any case they are ranked #6 in the world for a reason: I doubt we can upset a team like this without bringing our best men in top form and win the tactical battle. This was always the least likely win in the group.

Hopefully we can close on a high with a win over Estonia!

Last edited by Lemonshine at 12/1/2014 2:54:36 PM

Their flow was higher than ours. Not quite a whole rating above. The same with their inside shooting, and both defensive ratings. We had an edge on rebounding, but it didn't matter because they didn't give us a lot of opportunities to rebound.

You mention gdp, which I'm sure everyone is looking at, and saying, well, obviously they were going to use LI. Next week's game, to them, would seem to be even more important than the one against us. I don't feel it is obvious that they were going to use LI, in advance of the game, when it possibly rules out its use next week. Of course, perhaps Finland think its obvious Lithuania will guess LI so they used it against us instead. Perhaps I should have seen that but we're not at a very confusing level of thinking.

Last week, Finland's game shape was very different to this week. I mentioned during the game last week that I wished we were playing Finland then. And our game shape was lower than last week.

Our LI was not obious. I had several different toughts about our tactic. It changed few times at weekend, so it was kind of right thing to do, not to guess our tactics. But, at the end we still used that LI...

Heads up guys, you did what you could.

Cheers!