A start that no one imagined: “Žalgiris” returns home leading the Euroleague / News

Photo: zalgiris.lt

The legendary Pionir Arena, now known as Aleksandaras Nikoličius Hall, is normally one of the hottest places in the world of basketball. And yet even in these less ordinary times, it retains its identity.

Due to the strict protection against the COVID-19 rules, the match in Serbia takes place without spectators, but as in Greece in a similar situation, dozens of the electorate still enter the arena.

In Serbia, even local journalists cannot participate in the match; There can only be duel filming operators in the arenas, service personnel and people from television channels who have bought the broadcast rights of the match.

In total, the arena can accommodate up to 150 people at a time, including basketball players and club staff.

I don’t know how Crvena Zvezda explains to the extra people, but they actually reach that maximum of 150 people by inviting about 70-80 spectators to the stands.

That those dozens of spectators are heard was confirmed even before the game started. After the first five of the teams stood on the parquet, there was complete silence for a while as no music was playing. The Serbian spectators began to applaud, thus urging the teams until the silence was complemented by the Euroleague anthem, traditionally played before the start of all duels.

And then traditionally, even in these non-traditional times, that hymn was whistled in the hall of Aleksandaras Nikoličius. Serbs are still Serbs.

And yet playing in an arena like this is definitely easier for the visiting team.

Žalgiris finished the three-match field mini-marathon in the Serbian capital and finished it in a way that no one (let’s face it) expected: three wins out of three, with no more than 70 points allowed in all matches.

“Of course, we have to expect victories all the time, but I had a hard time imagining that we would start 3-0,” Jokubaitis admitted after the match to the website BasketNews.lt.

He had spent almost half an hour playing the court, mostly in his career, and that was something else that no one could have expected at such an early stage in the season. Not only that, Jokubaitis played the entire last quarter unchanged.

It may be illogical to know that on Thursday he is already expecting another Euroleague game and the player himself admitted that it was difficult for him to catch his breath. But what makes sense in these crazy times?

“We have a plan not to play more than 30 minutes, but if the game requires it, we have to do it,” explained coach Martin Schiller. – This is not a computer where you have to enter numbers and follow them. The party asked him “.

After rising from the bench as the sixth player, Jokubaitis not only took the lead on offense, but also stopped rival leader Jordan Loyd on defense, receiving praise from both the manager and his teammates.

Although he scored 19 points, Loyd made only 6 shots out of 15 and made a mistake 4 times.

“Sure, he threw 19 points, but he was not badly eliminated from the game. He had to make atypical decisions, the shots were not prepared either. I appreciate the work against him, both as a team and personally,” commented Jokubaitis.

No matter how interesting it sounds, the spare benches also help Žalgiris defend himself.

When there is minimal noise in the sands, all the sounds of the bank are perfectly audible, and the Žalgiris bank is especially alive.

“Watch out, he’s crossing!” A substitute for the team’s friend will yell when the Crvena Zvezda basketball player is standing in the corner of the field.

“Let him pull!” – someone else will yell when an opposing player decides to shoot from a medium distance.

“Box out, box out!” – urging opponents to open up after the throw, they will be called a spare.

“It’s really audible and therefore a bit easier to play,” admitted Lukas Lekavičius on the BasketNews.lt website. – Hear warnings when a barrier or help from an opponent arrives. A little easier, but all things being equal. It is also easier for rivals. It’s such an exceptional thing. “

“If you get support from the bank, then it really helps,” Schiller added. – We must appoint Paulius Jankūnas, who is the voice on the bench that helps in every situation when it is necessary to defend against opponents two against two. And if it happens consistently, then playing without fans is a big factor. “

“Žalgiris” put the third win in the dungeon, although the attack is not really brilliant yet. This is illustrated by the difficult ending of the match in Belgrade, when Kaunas scored the last points of the match in the 33rd minute of the match. In the remaining 7, they missed all 6 shots and made a mistake 5 times, but eventually they secured victory by defending and fines.

“We responded to his physique,” said Lekavičius, who played his best personal game of the season and scored 16 points. – And the coach mentioned, and we fully understand that they always play physically, which took us off track at the beginning of the game. The rivals play physically in defense, but we responded at the same time, we stayed in the game and won ”.

“Žalgiris” convincingly won the fight for the balls (36-25) and fell to the floor for every 50/50 ball in such a way that the elbows and knees did not really appreciate it.

Without abuse of long shots (6/16), Kaunas tried to attack the opponents’ slow lead and score points from the penalty area. Lekavičius was perfect for that.

“It just came to our attention then. Their centers are not the fastest, the coach emphasized attacking them, and I did it – Lekavičius spoke after the duel. – I think attacking slow crossings was the main factor why we stayed in the game. Both Rock and I often ran to the penalty area and we did it perfectly. In the third half, the rivals stepped up their defense a bit, but everything ended well. “

After postponing two games on Tuesday and experiencing the Valencian team’s first failure, Žalgiris rose for a time to first place in the Euroleague standings.

Four teams remain unsuccessful, but one of them, Zenit St. Petersburg, will not play a single game this week. After the coronavirus knocked out eight of their basketball players, Zenit did not go to Spain, where they had to play two games.

The fragility of the Euroleague is also illustrated by the situation in which Crvena Zvezda found himself. Today he was scheduled to fly to Lyon, where on Thursday a match with ASVEL in Willebanban awaited him.

A couple of hours before the start of the match with Žalgiris, the Crvena Zvezda representatives said that they did not know if they would travel anywhere, because the situation in the ASVEL team is difficult.

Shortly before the ball was released in Belgrade, it became clear that Tuesday’s ASVEL duel with Panathinaikos was being called off. It has yet to be announced, but a similar fate is likely to await Thursday’s duel with Crvena Zvezda.

Seeing this situation and last week, the people of Žalgiris, who have long worried about Joffrey Lauvergne, say that everything is very fragile.

“There are all kinds of thoughts about what will be here,” Lekavičius admitted. – We still don’t know anything, but our work remains the same: just watch and play the game. We read the news online, we see and know everything, but nothing changes with us.

Sure, that flight to Russia was more difficult, but thank God we can play. We have already played three games and hopefully everything continues ”.

“Žalgiris” really has to hope that everything continues like this. The start of the 3-0 season is definitely not what anyone could have predicted and would like to continue. On the other hand, in 2020, nothing really should surprise us.