Jonas Valanciunas has responded in the perfect way to criticisms Lithuania faced from Luka Doncic’s father by helping the country to its sixth win in seven games at the FIBA World Cup.
Luka’s father, Sasa Doncic, was very critical of the Lithuanian side after their elimination loss (68-87) at the hands of Serbia earlier this week.
“I think that Serbia was at such a high level that Lithuania turned out to be ridiculous,” Doncic snr. told Kurir. “You played a phenomenal game. I have to admit that for me the victory of Serbia is not a surprise, maybe it is a bit surprising such an easy triumph.”
Since then, in a classification game against Luka’s team Slovenia, Lithuania enjoyed a comfortable 100-84 win and Valanciunas finished the night with an impressive 24 points and 12 rebounds.
The Pelicans star seemed to address Sasa’s comments after the game.
“There are plenty of people who talk,” Valanciunas said. “While some talk, others do the job.”
Lithuania’s head coach Kazys Maksvytis also said that Sasa’s comments provided motivation for the win.
The country will now get the chance to claim the fifth spot in the tournament on Saturday if they beat Latvia in their next classification matchup.
And although the games won’t win the country a medal, the big man says the fans are the biggest motivating factor to carry on.
“We are playing for the fans that came here [to the Phillippines], watching us on TV and cheering for us,” Valanciunas said. “Maybe these last two games don’t mean much, but we are playing for the fans. We don’t want to leave the World Cup as a team that gives up.”
As for Luka Doncic’s father, no doubt he wouldn’t have liked the fact that Slovenia were eliminated at the hands of a strong Canadian outfit – a game where Luka was ejected from.
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