Serbia vs Lithuania Bet Builder Tips: European Battle For The Olympic Spot
Serbia vs Lithuania Bet Builder Tips, OPTA Stats, Player Props: Tuesday, September 5th
In the quarterfinals, we will have a battle of the Euros. Serbia lost to Italy and it all looked like they would go against the USA in the quarterfinals, but Lithuanians pulled a massive upset against Team USA. Will the Lithuanians again be fatal for Serbians like in FIBA 2015 Eurobasket, or will the Serbian side be victorious?
We have a look at the Serbia vs Lithuania game and our basketball expert Elek Lenard has prepared a 3-piece bet builder.
Bet Builder Odds: 3.00
Odds available as of September 4th 2023. odds may now differ
Serbia vs Lithuania stats and facts
- Serbia went over this line in every game except against Italy, in which Bogdan shot 1/13 for three and pace was slower than their average.
- Lithuania plays drop coverage with Jonas, Serbia should look to attack from the perimeter
- Lithuania showcased they are capable of playing in the fast-paced basketball Serbia forces, Lithuanians won against the USA by 110-104.
SERBIA VS LITHUANIA BET BUILDER TIPS: FIGHT FOR THE OLYMPIC SPOT
Total points 163.5+
Lithuania won against the USA scoring 110 points. There is always variation concern, but what isn’t in the question is that Serbia will look to play faster. In 5 games Serbia played, in 4 they went over 163.5 points by a pretty good margin.
In the whole tournament, basketball has been played really fast, and Serbia plays with a 78.8 pace, which is 11th place in the tournament and the fastest pace by the European team. For comparison, in the Euroleague, the pace is 70.2, much slower than the Serbian team.
Lithuanians are playing slower, but still, they are also above the Euroleague average – Lithuania’s pace is 75.4. Lithuania faced some teams with offences that are easy to shut down (Greece, Mexico, Egypt, Montenegro) so they went over 163.5 points only against the USA. But they scored more than 91 points in every game!
The game against the USA is a solid showcase that Lithuania’s offence isn’t just thriving from three-pointers, but also from offensive rebounding: Lithuania is fourth best in the tournament at offensive rebounding, averaging 13.4 per game. Both Serbia and Lithuania got top 3 in offensive efficiency, Serbia scoring 1.17 points per possession, while Lithuanians scoring 1.11 points per possession. Even if Lithuania manages to make the game slower, both offences should be able to generate points to get over this line.
Rokas Jokubaitis over 5.5 assists
Rokas went over this line 4 times in 5 games. In some games, he played around 22 minutes and still went over. Today against Serbia, he will go against Aleksa Avramovic who is really aggressive, which is a double-edged sword for Serbia: on some possessions, Aleksa will be too aggressive, and Jokubaitis will then cross him.
After that, someone will need to help, and Jokubaitis will have an easy opportunity to assist. In the pick and roll, Serbia doesn’t play only one coverage, so on some occasions, if he gets hedged, that could also lead to some assists. Another thing will be good for Rokas, Serbia tends to lose shooters sometimes.
They are one of the teams in this tournament that allowed more than 30 3-point attempts to their opponents. Sometimes it was a gameplan, but there were situations where they just closed out badly or lacked focus. Rokas should punish that and pass the ball to Lithuania’s shooters.
Bogdan Bogdanovic 20+ points
Serbia’s first option at offence, Bogdan Bogdanovic, will have massive pressure upon him against the Lithuanians, but there isn’t a choice for him to avoid shooting. We saw against Italy how while he had an off-night, everyone from the Serbian team just gave him the ball and he forced it because no one would shoot.
He still managed to have 18 points, even though he shot 1/13 for three. Against the Dominican Republic, he had a nice bounceback, scoring 20 points in 22 minutes without a single miss. Jonas plays drop coverage in the pick-and-roll, which means Bogdan will be able to put up some open shots.
He can also play off-ball, and if Lithuania switches in the off-ball actions, he could be in situations where he can get open by movement. The closest player to Bogdan in the Serbian squad when we look at total field goal attempts is Dobric, who has 18 fga fewer, Bogdan is the clear first option and he should play 30+ minutes against Lithuania.
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