After defeating “Este”, Schiller put his finger on the defense: “This is not satisfactory” / News

Kaunas “Žalgiris”, who recorded ten consecutive victories against Vilnius “Rytas”, was stopped at home. After the match ended in 85:86, Kaunas coach Martin Schiller emphasized that his team did not play defense at the level it should.

“We are not happy with the defense. We played well there only for the first 5-6 minutes, after that we still did not get hooked, said Schiller in the press conference after the duel. – It looked like we could win when Thomas Walkup started the attack. at the end of the game, but we had problems in defense the whole game and that’s unsatisfactory. But “Rytas” is a very good team, second in the league, congratulations to them. “

Walkup scored two 3-pointers in the fourth quarter and scored 8 straight points, helping Žalgiris equalize the score: 79:79.

“Žalgiris” took the lead after 85:82, but Andrew Goudelock’s 3-pointer tied the score and Dovis Bičkauskis scored the winning penalty 1.8 seconds before play.

Žalgiris last stumbled against Rytas in 2019 in the KMT final in February, and this season they had won previous matches between them 92:45. It was the biggest difference of all time between these teams.

Ivan Buva, who scored 32 points and played the best match in Ryto’s career, was unstoppable among Vilnius residents. He hit 11 shots of 14, including 3 3-pointers of 4, and that number was the one that surprised coach Schiller the most.

“We should be commended for shooting, especially at the beginning of the game. He can hit him, but it is not known that he does. He shot and opened. We were expecting such a game in the penalty area, we did not expect him to hit from far,” said Schiller .

For Žalgiris, it was the third game in six days and after his Euroleague season ended on Thursday.

Could emotional and physical fatigue have affected such performance? Coach Schiller didn’t want to agree with that.

“I don’t want that to be an excuse. We play with that schedule all season and we can’t use that as an excuse,” Schiller said. – Now we will play three games a week all the time because they have been postponed. That will not change and we have to adapt. “