IZMIR (FIBA World Championship) - A stunning 13-2 run to start the second quarter and back-breaking shooting at key moments from Linas Kleiza has secured a hard fought 92-79 win for Lithuania over New Zealand in the opening game of Group D in Izmir.

 
Kleiza was masterful with 27 points and 8 rebounds for Lithuania, while Paulius Jankunas (15 points) and veteran Jonas Maciulis (14 points) were also prominent.

 
The star of the show was Kirk Penney, who scored 37 points on 16/20 free throw shooting despite receiving constant attention from the Lithuanian defence. Mika Vukona was excellent with 19 points, 9 rebounds and 3 assists, while Thomas Abercrombie pulled in 11 rebounds to go with 7 points for New Zealand.

 
The first quarter was a high quality affair, with both teams executing their offence to perfection – New Zealand through ball movement to free up shooters, Lithuania through a varied series of screens to get post ups and penetration – with the Europeans taking a 25-24 lead to the break.

 
Superstars Penney and Kleiza scored the first baskets of the game for their teams, and that would set the trend for the game. Penney in particular was superb, racking up 10 points for the quarter and 17 for the half.

 
The second quarter saw Lithuania step up their defensive physicality, forcing numerous Tall Blacks turnovers as they peeled of their match winning run behind the shooting of Kleiza, to lead 50-34 at half time.

 
The third quarter was New Zealand’s. After trailing 20-12 in the rebound count the Tall Blacks pulled in 12 boards to 4 for the quarter, closing within single figures on a number of occasions behind their impressive ball movement and Penney’s penetration.

 
But the last five points of the third quarter gave Lithuania a 74-61 lead, and while the Tall Blacks challenged repeatedly throughout the last quarter, they could not bridge the margin.

Afterwords Lithuania's Martynas Pocius visited with FIBATV.Com.

Lithuania faces Canada tomorrow at 4pm, while New Zealand face defending champions Spain at 9pm as Group D continues.

New Zealand quotes:

Thomas Abercrombie: It was a tough game tonight. Especially in the opening period, we had some problems in defense. At the beginning we seemed like we were giving up but then we tried to find our rhythm. We did our best but did not get the result.

Nenad Vucinic: Unfortunately we did not perform very well. We had problems at both the offensive and defensive ends. In spite of the time-outs that we took in the second quarter we could not perform well. I would like to congratulate our opponent. We tried to play according to our game plan but we could not.

Lithuania quotes:

Mantas Kalnietis: It was a hard game for us too. We saw our weaknesses and we know that we have couple of points which we should improve on. I believe that we will be more impactful in following games.

Kestutis Kemzura: We played against a great team both as the players and coaching. We were concerned about Kirk Penney, we matched him with our tallest player but he really pushed us to hard situations. We could not stop Kirk when he got the ball in his hands. We have some problems about rebounding. We especially need to improve our three point shooting, rebounds and our free throw shooting percentages. Javtokas’ situation is not so serious, he will come back very soon.

Boxscore