No hangover from USA win, Lithuania's Sedekerskis says after loss to Serbia

Their win against the United States may had been Lithuania's biggest accomplishment in the 2023 FIBA World Cup, but it's all in the past now as the European team got knocked out by a mighty Serbia squad in the quarterfinals.

Lithuania fell to Serbia, 87-68, on Tuesday and lost its chance to win the top prize in the ongoing World Cup.

"For sure it was a big win, but we knew that we came here to win the medal," Lithuania's Tadas Sedekerskis said in a press conference.

"We set our goal out there on the first day of our camp, we want the medal. Nobody were rating us to play that good so our goal was to win the medal and we knew that if you want to win that, we have to beat Serbia in the quarterfinals today to go to the semifinals," he added.

Sedekerskis said the win against the United States is now just part of history.

"The game against the United States, as you can see, now it's nothing. It's just history. Now we don't have any chances to fight for the medal so we knew that," he said.

Lithuania’s Tadas Sedekerskis talks about ‘forgetting’ the win against USA before their match against Serbia #FIBAWC @gmasportsph @gmanews pic.twitter.com/Uvk9V2e0Tk

— JK Carandang (@jk_carandang) September 5, 2023

"We didn't think we'll be good or something because we won against the United States. The Serbian team is an amazing team and they know how to play basketball. They have great players like Bogdanovic so it was easy to forget. Maybe for the fans no but for the players, I can guarantee you 100% we [have] forget[ten] that."

Lithuania coach Kazys Maksvytis said lack of recovery time was a factor in their loss.

"The toughest team won today. From our side, lack of energy and lack of emotions cost us," he said.

"They looked more aggressive, they played better defense. We couldn't get our rhythm. The result says it all, we lost by 20 points. They just crushed us," echoed Sedekerskis.

Lithuania will still play in the classification round against the loser of the Canada-Slovenia match on Thursday.

—JMB, GMA Integrated News