After a great victory – Žalgiris self-poster: “You can’t play the end of the game like this” / News

Nuotr .: Valencia Basket / Miguel Ángel Polo

Nuotr .: Valencia Basket / Miguel Ángel Polo

Nuotr .: Valencia Basket / Miguel Ángel Polo

Nuotr .: Valencia Basket / Miguel Ángel Polo

Nuotr .: Valencia Basket / Miguel Ángel Polo

Augustine Rubit and Nigel Hayes, one after another, scattered memories of the match that had just ended. Who did not stop anywhere, who did not get the ball, who broke, who did not shoot the basket, there were so many mistakes that they both shook their heads and couldn’t believe it.

The two Americans from Kaunas “Žalgiris” had returned to the Valencia Fonteta park as their teammates prepared to leave for the hotel in the changing room. Rubit had just finished an interview on the BasketNews.lt website, and Hayes didn’t want to be in the locker room with happy friends because he was too mad at himself for a mistake at the end of the match.

With 7 seconds to go, Hayes fouled three-point shooter Nikolai Kaliničius. The Serbian scored the first two penalties, lost the third, but the ball fell into the hands of the hosts and Sam Van Rossom once again weighed the result on three points: 78:77.

He capped an 8: 0 streak in just 40 seconds. “Žalgiris” led by Thomas Walkup with a 77:70 three-point lead, but soon saw this lead dissolve.

“I can’t believe we all made some mistakes,” Rubit said.

“And then, among all the mistakes, it seemed like God had chosen me and said, ‘Nigel, you’re wearing the game,'” Hayes added, recalling his transgression.

He was the first to bolt out of the locker room when there were laughter and shouts of victory, but when these died down, everyone admitted to feeling just like Hayes.

“It just came to our attention then. I couldn’t believe we lost the win,” said Rubit. – Sure, the last pitch was amazing, but how many times has he hit such a shot? In my mind, our mistakes have been spinning for the last few 2-3 minutes. I think so, it can’t be like that. “

Man of the match

“It just came to our attention then. It’s not possible, – Paulius Jankūnas emphasized” Žalgiris TV “. – It’s nice that Marius took us out again, but we played stupidly in the end. It’s impossible to make so many bad decisions with both points and so much time. remaining. It seemed like everything got out of hand and we gave up the win. We would have given up on the win. We won, it’s fun, but we have to watch and analyze so it doesn’t happen again. “

After having irresponsibly punished Piraeus Olympiakos at the end of the match a week ago, this time the people of Žalgiris did their best to blow up the successful job for 38 minutes.

Leading all the way from the 12th minute, Žalgiris’s team was 74:67 ahead in the penultimate minute and appeared to be successfully approaching a thirteenth victory.

Even after Joffrey Lauvergne foolishly touched the ball under the whistle and two points were scored from Martin Hermannsson, although he had no chance of falling on goal, the situation didn’t look bad when Walkup scored a triple across the goal. the field and increased the lead to 77:70.

Moments later, Rubit did not ascend to Prepelic when he was released below the barrier, and a precise stab wound reduced Valencia’s lead to 73:77.

“Žalgiris” returned to the field after a minute of rest with 36.4 seconds left. and launched an attack that could be touched if the match was lost. After overcoming the pressure, Žalgiris could have scored easy points from under the basket, but at first Rubitas pardoned the ball to Lauvergne, and then Grigonis did not dare to attack from under the basket to burn more attack time .

Ultimately Lauvergne had a chance to shoot from under the basket, missed, but recovered the ball himself. And then when he no longer had to quit, he did just that.

This mistake crowned a strange night for Lauvergne when, on the one hand, he collected the first double of the season and, on the other hand, he committed so many pitfalls that it was difficult to remember a similar case.

Lauvergne lost and left the hosts with 13 seconds. In 10 seconds, they were able to score 5 points and escape.

„Prepeličius meta po handoffowhen we have to change … Our Frenchman came up with something to do … That our attack was fun … I don’t shoot when I’m free 25 seconds, the next throws, although we have to keep the ball. I hope we learn, “Grigonis scored the mistakes one by one.

For the last attack, Žalgiris had 3.3 seconds and Walkup barely managed to throw the ball in 5 seconds, thus avoiding another yawn error.

Grigonis then slipped between two opponents and launched a victorious shot right in front of the siren.

“I caught the ball and thought about shooting a triple or trying to push,” Grigonis said. “Then I saw Hermannsson coming, I made the spindle and saw that they were both behind. I pulled and, I see, inside. It’s fun. “

“When two rivals came up against him, I didn’t think he would slip,” Rubitas said. “But Marius has made so many incredible pitches, anything is possible when he pitches.”

It was Grigonis’ second successful pitch this season and the second in a row for “Žalgiris”, when last week’s victory was snatched away by Walkup in the closing seconds.

This time in Valencia “Žalgiris” scored 27 points in the second half alone and led 47:38 in the middle of the duel.

Before the long break, the residents of Kaunas made 7 long throws, 3 of them – Rubitas. Having scored just 3 points out of 5 in 21 games thus far, this time he scored the top three.

After a long break, “Žalgiris” started to stagnate and scored just 17 points in the first 14 minutes of the second half, thus closing in on the rivals at 60:64.

When it seemed that Valencia would take control of the match, Žalgiris fled again, but the last two minutes still turned into an extraordinary drama.

“Basketball is the most amazing sport in the world. There would be no such things in football,” Hayes summed up, already calmed down a bit.

I cannot disagree.

Žalgiris, who has planted a fort on the roads, will continue his stay in Spain moving to the north of the country, where the challenge of the Baskonia de Vitoria awaits him on Friday.