Lithuania's leading player Sarunas Jasikevicius took a swipe at the European Championship organisers after his team took bronze.

They beat 2005 winners Greece 78-69 in the third-place play-off match to earn the Baltic state automatic qualification to the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Although delighted with finishing third, the Golden State Warriors guard was still angry.

"I think the system is horrible, a disgrace. It's the reason why we are not in the final. With all due respect to Russia this is why we lost to them," Jasikevicius said.

"We won all our games in the group stage and our reward was to play a team who finished fourth, Croatia, who had a day more rest. The same when we played Russia in the semis, we had 20 hours they had two days.

"We had a better chance of beating them with more preparation. We earned it."

Greek guard Nikolaos Zisis notched a game-high 23 points for the former champions, who trailed from midway through the second quarter.

"We gave our hearts and souls but we didn't have fresh minds. Lithuania played better, we weren't at our best," said Greece coach Panagiotis Yannakis.

Reuters