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On Sunday, the leading teams of Kaunas Žalgiris and Vilnius Rytas will meet at the Jeep Arena, which currently lead the Lithuanian Basketball League (Betsafe-LKL).
Kaunas have won the first two mutual matches of this season with confidence. The Žalgiris team won the first match in Vilnius, which caused a lot of intrigue, 84:72, and then in Kaunas 92:45 they simply crushed the Vilnius team, who played without some important players.
The Krepsinis.net portal reviewed what to expect in the third game between the two teams.
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Can the G.Žibėnas factor work?
It is obvious that the Vilnius club is currently going through the best section of this season and the changes in the coaching staff have at least partially produced the desired result. So far, under the leadership of G.Žib “nas, “Rytas” has not lost a single half and has the longest series of 12 wins in the league. Even Žalgiris, who has now won 7 times in a row and previously had a 10-win streak, cannot boast of such a number.
This rise of “Rytas” is influenced by the player rotation finally, at least slightly established. This season, the team already said goodbye to 6 legionnaires, who temporarily helped the team with Tautvydas Lydeka and therefore did not play a single match and did not play against Saulius Kulvietis. Ivan Buva, the club’s latest acquisition, has already managed to play 5 games and keep his feet warm – the Croat averaging 14 points and 17 utility points in 20 minutes.
It is obvious that G.Žibėnas has managed to stabilize the situation and at least manages to avoid embarrassing defeats for the Vilnius team. Still, out of the last 12 matches won, the Vilnius team won 5 times with single-digit differences and broke the match only in the second half of the match. In most cases, this allowed them to have a greater command of the player.
This clash with the Kaunas club will become a pretty clear litmus test, showing how much G.Žibėnas has really managed to line up the team. At the moment, Rokas Gustys, who was injured in the early stages of the season, cannot help Rytas, so it can be said that the people of Vilnius will enter this fight fully prepared.
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Rotation problems “Žalgiris”
Recently, the situation during matches between “Žalgiris” and “Rytas” is such that Vilnius residents can only bite when the circumstances are right. It seems that it is in this match where this circumstance can fall quite favorably for Rytas.
The Kaunas club played the Euroleague match in Istanbul with the Fenerbahche team on Thursday and in that match Joffrey Lauvergne played with the help of painkillers and was only 14 minutes away. “Žalgiris” still has not given up hope of holding on to the Euroleague playoffs, so he should at least definitely defend his main center forward, and Artūras Milaknis still won’t be able to help the team.
In the game with Fenerbahche, Martin Schiller used a very modest rotation and Karolis Lukošiūnas, Martin Geben and Steve Vasturia played little, and Marekas Blaževičius did not get off the bench at all. The main question is whether M. Schiller will use more the principles of the Euroleague or LKL rotation in this match with the East.
During the last 5 LKL games, M. Blaževičius played at 13 minutes, M. Gebenas – at 16, K. Lukošiūnas – at 22 and S. Vasturia – at 22. Therefore, his role is radically different in Euroleague and LKL battles. Kaunas residents will play the next Euroleague game on Thursday, and before Tuesday they will have a match with Alytus “Dzūkija” at home.
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Weaknesses of the “Rytas” defense and possible advantageous situations
Rytas last celebrated their victory over Žalgiris in February 2019 at the King Mindaugas Cup (KMT) tournament. Since then, Kaunas has beaten Vilnius rivals 11 times and 10 of them did so by double-digit differences. Although in most cases “Žalgiris” simply smothered the opponents with his defense (7 times “Rytas” scored less than 70 points), in this match the defense of Vilnius residents can become the biggest problem.
“Žalgiris” is struggling a lot against mobile teams that can trade defenders this season. We cannot call the Vilnius team mobile front line and Martynas Echodas will have a lot of problems when defending and staying in front of any player on the Kaunas team perimeter. The game “2 against 2” of Marius Grigonis or Lukas Lekavičius can become an insurmountable puzzle for the defense of Vilnius residents. It is true that M. Echod himself, if J. Lauvergne misses the match, can cause problems for Žalgiris closer to the basket.
The Vilnius club held a kind of rehearsal for the match with “Žalgiris” while playing with “Dzūkija”, when they used I.Buvas and M.Echodas at the same time on the field. In this way, Vilnius residents move closer to the basket and cover the gaps in the penalty area, but leave more space on the three-point line. Considering that the people of Žalgiris haven’t pulled far from far lately, it can work.
Throughout the Euroleague season, “Žalgiris” was one of the most accurate teams in the league and even now Kaunas’ total hitting percentage is by far the third in the league (40.6%), but in the last 3 games Kaunas They were attacked by only 30.3% from the three-point zone. precision and this was the second worst result.
Žalgiris are the best team in the LKL championship (40.2%), but the Vilnius club is slightly behind them, 40%. It’s realistic that Vilnius residents can take a chance with Nigel Hayes or other less confident pitchers on the perimeter and hope for success.
“Rytas” may have the biggest advantages in this match at the “third number” position. When A. Milaknis fell, “Žalgiris” is often forced out of the situation, and for this reason we saw Rokas Jokubaitis defending himself even against Markas Guduričius. The Vilnius club has Arnas Butkevičius and Gytis Radzevičius in this position, for whom G.Žibėnas should contemplate a rather important role, and if at least some advantages can be looked for in “Rytas” somewhere, they would be in the position of ” third number “.
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