Lithuania will go back home with the 5th spot in EuroBasket 2005 after beating Slovenia 79-70 in the 5-6 classification game on Sunday. Both teams will play next year in the World Championship in Japan 2006.

Lithuania connected on 7 of of their 14 shots from behind the arc, while Slovenia struggled tonight from the same range with 3 out of 20.

Sani Becirovic scored the game’s opening points, but that was to be Slovenia’s only lead.

Robertas Javtokas and Ramunas Siskauskas had a great first half and combined for 22 points, almost half of what their team made and 4 less than the Slovenian total.

Lithuania slowly increased their margin and finished the first half up by 19, 45-26, but that was just a warm up for the third quarter.

A Javtokas basket put his team up by 26 points, 54-28, but Slovenia still had Becirovic and Jaka Lakovic, who paved their way back to the game with a 0-14 run.

Lithuania had some breathing space in the first early of the last quarter, until Erazem Lorbek made it 72-67 with less than 3 minutes to go and coach Ales Pipan called for a time out.

But a three-pointer from Siskauskas and 2 free throws by Giedrius Gustas put Lithuania up 78-68 and the game was out of reach.

Javtokas led Lithuania with 22 points and Siskauskas finished the championship with 20 points with 3 out of 4 from three point land.

Uros Slokar and Bostjan Nachbar had 12 each for Slovenia and Primoz Brezec added 11 points.