Kurtinaitis on Žalgiris Interview & Iceland Exit

Icelandic journalists don’t remember such a great atmosphere as the old woman and the Laugardalshöll arena in Reykjavik, which holds only 2.3 thousand spectators, breathed on Friday night.

Mainly because of the fans who supported Lithuania in great numbers, who pushed Rimos Kurtinaitis’s students towards a guaranteed victory in the golden match against Iceland.

However, the Lithuanian basketball players, who were in the lead for most of the match, stopped in the 33rd minute of the meeting, when they had an advantage of 21 points.

The rest of the time belonged to Iceland, who won perhaps the biggest victory in the history of the country, or rather, a kid who competed in our country in the past.

The 183 cm tall Elvars Fridriksson, who played for “Šiauliai” and “Ryte” Vilnius in the past, scored 19 of his 34 points in the fourth quarter, and the last shot came with the siren announcing the end of the match.

After this failure, the Lithuanians only further messed up their chances to break through to the 2027 world championships in Qatar.

“There was no collapse, everything was in order,” Rimas Kurtinaitis did not dramatize after the match. “I could say that in life there are situations when a team plays well, but loses. I mean our team, because I have no fault with the players for their desire and effort. Yes, there were mistakes, but I have no fault with any of them. It happens that you play well, and the other team plays a little better. Today was like that. I wouldn’t say, that we were “off topic”. Everything was fine.

Too bad we learn from our mistakes. We have highlighted the situation when the British who played in Reykjavík also had a 21-point advantage, and the Icelanders had reduced the deficit to 6 points. It was only a lucky coincidence that the British scored a three-pointer and escaped, which our players were unable to do today. It was a one-on-one situation. We emphasized before the match that we have to play the full 40 minutes, regardless of the result. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.

I don’t think there is any tragedy here. Now it will be necessary to recover the players in two days. I think it’s a psychological moment now because we have to recover in two days. Matches like this still blow your mind. We have to stand up and go to fight, because we can’t think of anything else.”

– Coach, you say that there is no tragedy, even though your team lost 30 points in the last 6 minutes.

“I know we missed it.” And that one of their players imposed a lot. I know everything, so what? And what changes if we lost by one point? If you count the points, maybe you remember the game against Macedonia, when their player scored 42 points, but we won? So what? We won the match. Yes, one man scored a lot of points for us and, which is very rare, one man won the game. We reacted to these things, played five low players to defend against them. We didn’t need a tall because they didn’t play with their tall. We exchanged defenders, but maybe not as actively as the coaches would like. I would say that it was fabulous luck for the Icelanders to pull off such a match.

– Did you have any comments for the referees regarding E.Fridriksson’s possible moves in the last attack?

– I don’t want to get into it. There are judges, they do their job. We tried to say something, but why not write a protest now? It happened, it happened.

As is often the case – we have to swallow the bad pill, we have to come back to ourselves, and what is important to me, the team has to rebuild in two days and play full-fledged basketball on Monday. I don’t even know what kind of players we will have, who will leave and who will stay. We’ll have to deal with it and move forward. Of course, we wanted to go into the second round with more victories, because that’s the system, but it didn’t work out, so now we’ll try to just go out.

– Which Žalgiris players are you calm about for the second match, and which ones do you have questions about?

“I haven’t thought about it yet.” It’s like they wanted to get something back, but I don’t want to touch on this topic. Apparently, this is always the case in life. Now the importance of the next match increases even more. It’s like money here – the more you have, the more you need. The importance of the upcoming match is huge, we will try to talk something with “Žalgiris”, maybe we will be able to come to an agreement.

– Is it about Oak Tubelis?

– We talked about one match, we are very happy that they gave it to us for that match. But sometimes, when something changes, it might be possible to negotiate a second match. The situation has changed. If we manage to negotiate, it will be good.

“Does he have a problem with his ankle?”

– No, you don’t have. But I also understand the situation of “Zalgiris”. They will need to play but have no one to practice with. As far as I know, Sylvain Francisco will play in both matches against France. It would be good for us to have Oak for the second match as well.

But I try to understand all sides. Zalgiris is now in a very grateful situation to qualify for the playoffs, they should be training at the moment, but I don’t know what else they have in the squad. If Oak gives us, maybe the training process will collapse? I don’t want to speak for them, but it seems that way to me. Maybe there will be a problem, or maybe we can come to an agreement.

ltu.basketball photo/Ažuolas Tubelis

– Does S.Francisco’s dedication act as a positive example for the Lithuanians of “Žalgiris”?

– I don’t want to compare something, everyone behaves the way they do. He will play two matches, while “Žalgiris” gave us one. If you don’t give it to others, you won’t give it. It would be nice to give. It is not far to drive to Klaipėda.

I don’t make a big deal, I don’t want to judge anyone. The importance is great, perhaps I mention the word Lithuania too often, but I will return to the same point. We would all be happy if the national team played in the World Cup. We must make every effort to do so. Sometimes there are no opportunities, but we will see. Let’s not get ahead of the train.

FIBA.com photo/Sylvain Francisco

– What kind of blow is it for Lithuanians to lose to such a small basketball country like Iceland?

– There is no blow. After all, we already talked about that topic. If we collect all the best players, then we will not lose, which we also did in the friendly match in Alytus against Iceland, if you remember. Now we are not collecting players. We collected the players one day before the match, we got three players from “Žalgiris”. Thanks to them for this, I have already thanked them many times. We have something to play after watching the video without training. I would say that we still played relatively well, as we are preparing.

Should we talk about the time when I played basketball myself, and we four basketball players from Lithuania represented the Soviet Union and beat America, which has 200 million people? There were four of us Lithuanians, only 3 million people in our country. So what?

Why do you say that Iceland is a small country? Do you follow football? Do you know their phenomenon? Same here, same phenomenon. We have already said that they are a little more comfortable. They gathered all the players, trained for a week, and we didn’t have that luxury. This is not an apology, but an explanation, for you asked such a question.

Iceland is a good basketball team. We see it. After all, everyone has a problem with Icelanders. Is Italy a basketball country? Are we a basketball country? But we have problems too, yes? It’s not the basketball countries that sometimes win, but the ones that rise and achieve something. Iceland is a country on the rise, so kudos and kudos to them. They have Viking character, they fought until the last second and beat us at the last moment. It happens, what more can I say.

You know my character, I will always find what was wrong. I came to the dressing room and said that I have no complaints against any player because we were a great team today. In life, sometimes you lose even when you’re great.

– What essential idea will you take to Lithuania from this match?

– I am very surprised by the accuracy of the Icelanders for the whole 40 minutes. At the end, we missed both free three-pointers and shots from under the basket. Maybe it was a sign of excitement or fatigue. But how well the Icelanders played all 40 minutes… Let’s remember the beginning of the game, when they hit 3 of the 3 first three-pointers. They also finished the match with exactly the same pace and accuracy. This pleasantly surprises me – how can such a match be played under such tension and so successfully? I will say it again – I want to congratulate the rival team for fighting. This is a great example of how to fight to the end.