Lithuania over Italy for European title

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Lithuania won its third title at the European Basketball Championships on Sunday, defeating Spain 93-84 behind 21 points from Arvydas Macijauskas.

Italy earlier won an Olympic basketball berth by beating France 69-67 for the bronze medal when Tony Parker of the NBA champion San Antonio Spurs missed a layup with less than two seconds left.

Lithuania and Spain qualified for the Olympics by winning semifinals Saturday. The Italians clinched the last remaining European slot for the Athens Games. Host Greece and world champion Serbia-Montenegro earned automatic spots.

Pau Gasol of the Memphis Grizzlies had 36 points for Spain, which has never won the European title. Juan Carlos Navarro added 18 and Jorge Garbajosa 17.

Eurelijius Zukauskas scored 18 points for the winners.

"Our country is not so strong financially, that's why many players go abroad," Zukauskas said. "But when we come together we play our best basketball."

Lithuania led 40-31 at the half and 78-57 with five minutes left before Spain rallied.

"If it wasn't for our depth we probably wouldn't have pulled this one off," said Donn Nelson, the Dallas Mavericks' president of basketball operations who is in his 11th season as Lithuania's assistant coach. "Because they came back like a bunch of roaring lions at the end of the fourth quarter."

A bronze medalist in the last three Olympics, Lithuania won its previous European titles in 1937 and 1939 and reached the final in 1995.

After the buzzer, the Lithuanians paraded their flag and saluted thousands of countrymen in the crowd of 13,274 at the Globe Arena. Back home, fireworks soared above Lithuanian cities and towns as flag-waving crowds poured into the streets.

"I was waiting for this day for 64 years. Everyone in Lithuania was waiting, and this great day finally came," said former president Valdas Adamkus, who recalled the 1939 title game.

Parker scored 24 points for a French team that featured four NBA players. He put his team up 64-63 with a dazzling drive with 1:40 left. His free throw with 12 seconds to go cut Italy's lead to 69-67. Then Massimo Bulleri lost the ball in his own end to give France another chance. Parker drove past three Italians before missing.

Italy barely survived the first round, going 1-2 before winning two close games to reach the semis.

Earlier, Nikolaos Chatzivrettas scored 21 points, leading Greece to a 72-64 win over Serbia-Montenegro for fifth place. The Serbs played without two injured NBA players, Peja Stojakovic of Sacramento and Marko Jsric of the Los Angeles Clippers.

This was the Serbians' worst finish in the Europeans since placing seventh in 1983 and 1985.

"We must try to find something positive to prevent this from ever happening again," Serbian coach Dusko Vujosevic said.

In a game for seventh place Israel beat Russia 89-82. Russia's Andrei Kirilenko of the Utah Jazz was bothered by a sore back and had only 11 points.