D-Mo @ Eurobasket 2013 (First friendly game Aug 6)

He's a liability on defense right now. I suspect we'll be seeing more of homeless stomping Jones this season.

 

Lithuania-Russia live in 10 minutes.

Kirilenko, Mozgov and Khryapa not playing for Russia.

Not sure if D-Mo is playing, but I haven't seen anything about him sitting out today.
He did survive the first cut -- Lithuania cut one of their guards (Gecevicius). Two more to be cut.

 

Kirilenko, Mozgov and Khryapa won't play in Eurobasket.

Russia is not the only team that has to play smaller than usual, however. Pau Gasol and Ibaka won't be playing, Bargnani and Gallinari are out, Greece has some injuries as well and Koufos won't be playing etc. Pekovic won't be playing either (Montenegro would have had intriguing duo of Vucevic and Pekovic as their twin towers).

D-Mo might start the second half like yesterday. I'd say he is mostly competing against Linas Kleiza and Mindaugas Kuzminskas and Lavrinovic for minutes. Naturally they will start Valenciunas at center and Javtokas is probably his backup. Kuzminskas has been playing pretty well and Kleiza is always good to have around even if his D is worse than D- Mo and completely atricious at times.

 

D-Mo starts the second half. Just hit a 3.

 

Another three and a couple of nice passes. D-Mo is playing well today.

 

^^^ Ya, I know that Kirkilenko and company won't play at EuroBasket.

I agree that he'd be fighting more minutes with the players you mentioned, but I'm not so sure he's even making the final cut.
Cizauskas should get cut next. He's not ready. The last spot should come down to D-Mo, Delininkaitis and D. Lavrinovic. Using 12 roster spots on 6 bigs doesn't seem too smart; too great a risk if one of their guards gets injured. Delininkaitis isn't all that, but he does give you position versatility and injury insurance.
So... do you think D-Mo gets the edge over Larinovic? He's making a pretty strong case today, but I still have my doubts. Coaches love known quantities.

 

Most likely Cizauskas would stay because he's the only one legit point-guard this year. Next out I guess is Juskevicius, he's 25 I think, and didn't showed much, not ready. Last one most likely will be a big man, and I guess it's one of the Lavrinovic brothers (Darjus probably).

 

I don't watch them enough so I'm probably wrong anyway.

However, I would question the logic of bringing both Javtokas and Lavrinovic. You really can't cut Javtokas, can you? Lavrinovic and Motiejunas might be a coin toss now but Lavrinovic is, what, 35?

If you cut D-Mo again, I don't think he is going to take that too well. I don't know if he has the personality for that but many players would be like: " F U, you didn't want me then, why should I play for you now?" This of course if he develops as we want and becomes a force to be reckoned with against the best in the world. I really don't know. I kinda liked the Valenciunas-Motiejunas pairing yesterday even if D-Mo didn't play that well, that's a really bad matchup for a lot of teams, particularly considering the aforementioned lack of top bigs at this years Eurobasket.

 

D-Mo will be in the final 12. It's first year of 4 years plan to Rio Olympics, so it wouldn't make any sense to cut Motiejunas again.
After today I am 99% sure Cizauskas and Juskevicius will leave the team, because they can't be productive in limited minutes, while Delininkaitis is probably the best producer in limited minutes in entire team. Lavrinovic brothers are going to Slovenia, 100%. Javtokas' role has decreased a lot with successful JV's play, but I really don't think he could be eliminated. He's much better than Cizauskas or Juskevicius. Though if you'd look at the future, 4 years plan - everything possible, but I doubt it.

 

^^^ We'll see. I'd be surprised if they went with 6 bigs.

D-Mo with 11 pts (4/6 FG 3/4 3P), 3 reb & 1 ast in 16 minutes today. Rushed a few plays, but good showing overall.

Spoiler

 

Lithuania - Finland:

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Lithuania - Russia:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/xigYw8YUorM?list=UUENHqEK8wrDDkAwi12WUQfg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

D-Mo only plays in the second half in both of these games.

 

Does anybody know if the Lithuania coaches are pleased he bulked up to 260 pounds or were they not in favor of him doing that?

 

They don't care, atleast no one asked them about it.

 

The coach cares defense, if a player doesn't defend, the coach will not play him

 

Big question is, why did Montiejunas come off the bench for his Lithuanian team. Did the coaches want to save his energy ... or did they not think of D-Mo as a capable starter ?

 

watching those 2 games, he still has terrible lateral movement on D and simply gets lost in the play far too often. also still gets pushed around too much around the paint. he made some nice interior passes though.

 

trying to find positives are hard to come by in those games, never been a big DMo guy compared to TJ, and his defences here just proves it. in saying that lets hope that dwight and asik can hide his defensive flaws like they did to laker and magic and asik did to his rocket team-mates.

 

Really, you couldn't find any positives?

3 of 4 from the 3 point line sounds like a positive to me.

 

Donatas Motiejunas should have bulked up his core like Jonas Valanciunas. Who agrees?