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Lithuania claims third consecutive men's basketball bronze
= = SYDNEY, Oct 1 (AFP) - Saulius Stombergas scored 28 points and Sarunas Jasikevicius added 22 as Lithuania defeated Australia 89-71 here Sunday to take the Olympic men's basketball bronze medal for the third Games in a row. The Lithuanians forever sealed their place in Olympic history two days ago, battling the United States "Dream Team" of National Basketball Association stars to the final shot before losing 85-83 in a semi-final game. It was the second Olympics in a row in which Lithuania defeated the Aussies for a bronze medal to keep them from capturing their first Games medal in men's basketball. Australian flag bearer Andrew Gaze, in his fifth and final Olympics, was again thwarted in a bid to end what has become a 40-year family quest to bring his homeland its first men's basketball medal. Gaze's father Lindsay was an Olympic player from 1960-1968 and coach from 1972-1984. Andrew made his Games debut at 19 at Los Angeles in 1984. Gaze scored a team-high 22 points, but could not rally the Aussies as he did in a quarter-final comeback victory over Italy. Lithuania led 51-35 at half-time and Jasikevicius quickly added back-to-back three-pointers to lift the edge to 59-35. Australia never came within 14 points after that. The Aussies made only 22 of 54 shots from the field and only 2-of-14 from three-point range while Lithuania sank 35-of-60 overall and 9-of-19 from three-point range. Lithuania made 22-of-33 shots in the first half, 6-of-11 from three-point range, while the Aussies hit only 10-of-25 and missed all six tries from beyond the three-point line. The Lithuanians made 11 of their first 14 shots, including 3-of-3 from three-point range, to grab a 30-14 lead and mute the crowd of 14,833, most of them boosters of the Boomers, as the Aussie squad is known Down Under. Jasikevicius scored eight points and Stombergas added seven in an early 26-10 run on the way to that lead. Each finished the half with 14 points. The Aussies scored eight consecutive points to halve the Lithuanian lead to 32-24 but a 12-5 run in the next 3:18 stretched Lithuania's margin to 46-31. The Australians were playing without center Luc Longley, a three-time National Basketball Association champion with the Chicago Bulls. Longley suffered a knee injury in a semi-final loss to France. Making the blow even worse for Longley was the fact he said before the Games began that one of his most painful memories was being injured and watching the 1996 Aussie Olympians lose the bronze-medal game to Lithuania in Atlanta.
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