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“As soon as I arrived at the Vilnius team stadium, I first looked at the photos of the best players and coaches of the Rytas club that were displayed on the ceilings.
I have known Rimas Kurtinaitis from the time of Chimki. And yet, among the onlookers, I saw a boy that I saw in Germany. He is now the director of the Rytas club, ”Žalgiris coach Martin Schiller joked about Donatas Zavackas at the press conference.
D.Zavackas, the capital’s team manager, played in Germany in 2012-2013 and represented the EnBW teams in Ludwigsburg and the Telekom Basket teams in Bonn.
Meanwhile, M. Schiller worked for the Artland Dragons team.
Continuing with the commemorative night, the Austrian was asked if he had not seen familiar faces among the published photos. When Schiller said that there is a photo of current sports director Robert Javtok in the “Rytas” arena, M. Schiller was shocked.
“I really didn’t know, I don’t see very well,” said the Kaunas manager half seriously.
After Wednesday’s game in the regular season, the overall result of the battles between the teams “Žalgiris” and “Rytas” became 3: 1 in favor of the representatives of the LKL champions Kaunas.
In the match held in Kaunas on April 11, Gierdrius Žibėnas’s army by 86:85 unexpectedly won the victory for many.
Žalgiris certainly won the first two games of this season, once he did so with a record advantage of 47 points: 92:45 and 84:72.
It is true that at that time trauma and coronavirus were among the ranks of Vilnius.
The hegemony of “Žalgiris” in the LKL championship takes place for a decade, and the last time Vilnius residents took the top in the regular season was more than three years ago, in February 2018.
Rytas started the game on Wednesday with two triples and led 10: 6 after Ivan Buva’s 7 points.
After the first eight minutes of the duel, the score was 17:17.
In the second quarter, after the second three-point Mindaugas Girdžiūnas, Vilnius went ahead 25:21, and then another long shot with a penalty – 36:30.
However, Kaunas played the stage 14: 4 and weighed the result in his favor 44:40. Twenty minutes later, “Žalgiris” took the lead 46:43.
In the third half, Žalgiris broke with a record of 56:46 after three penalties by Nigel Hayes and had extended the distance to 12 points.
At the end of this half, Rytas managed to narrow the gap to 63:69, but was 63:71 behind the decisive ten minutes.
Basketball players in the capital tried to speed up and thus reduce the delay of “Žalgiris”, but suffered themselves, after playing for 3 minutes. the difference increased to 15 points – 82:67.
The hosts were unable to catch up with their opponents.
“We had two different parts of the match today. We knew the opponent was fighting well for the balls, so we had to pay more attention to the defense, so the attack hit. But in the second half of the match, we fixed everything.” said M. Schiller.
– What led to victory in this early game? they asked Mr. Schiller.
– We were much more active in the second half of the game and that helped us to take the initiative.
– In Kaunas, at the beginning of April, “Rytas” won against “Žalgiris”. Do you need to motivate your team before this confrontation?
– Players know what they are fighting against. They don’t need to be motivated. I realized this while living in Lithuania for eight months. Like rivals, both teams fought very hard.
– How are you 150 fans in the Morning Arena? Was it more fun to play?
– Of course, it was much more pleasant than without the fans. I felt a good atmosphere. I’d say there was a fantastic atmosphere at the moment because we all missed it.
I remember how it was in the first game when the teams fought against the fans: then that atmosphere was especially felt.
