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Photo: BNS
BNS photo
Coach Martin Schiller no longer needs navigation to find the right roads in Kaunas. For the fifth month in a row, the Austrian strategist, who lives in Lithuania’s second-largest city, says he knows Kaunas so much that he feels at home here.
Points are earned this season
Fully adapted to the new living environment, he also feels better and better in a professional environment.
Kaunas “Žalgiris” finished the first round of the Euroleague with 10 victories in 17 rounds and such a result guarantees sixth place in the standings.
However, the tournament venue is not just what the Žalgiris coach is looking at.
“Looking pragmatically at the standings, we have 10 wins, which is very good,” Schiller told a press conference before the start of the second round of the Euroleague on Thursday. – But you need to look deeper than the classification. We were quite stable in attack, we showed a clear improvement in defense. Our goal is to improve defense, I think that’s the most important thing for us. “
“Žalgirs” adds a series of five victories in the Euroleague, has not lost more than 73 points in six consecutive games, and Marius Grigonis shines not only in his team, but also in the entire Euroleague.
Schiller spoke about this in the first half of the season in Žalgiris at Thursday’s conference.
– Trainers, you came here as a new person from a different world, and it had to be a difficult situation. Was there already a time when you could say that you have fully adapted here?
– During my life I traveled a lot and many times I found myself in new situations, whether I changed places in the country, or traveled to another country, or to a completely different continent. I have experience traveling and adjusting, but experience will not replace the adjustment period, it just is. Provides experience but does not shorten adaptation.
Kaunas Žalgiris / Schedule
A couple of days ago, I was talking to my assistant Arne. After the game, we always have coffee and drive around town. We have several roads, but we usually drive one. Now I have already followed a place where I am completely used to Kaunas. He is human when faced with a new place. When I came to the United States, I needed time to get used to the wide streets and the big cars. Half a year later, that was normal. Now I feel at home in Kaunas. I feel adapted in my personal life.
In the professional world, of course, there is adaptation. If I hadn’t adapted, maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here anymore (laughs). It simply is. But at the same time, I am far from saying that I have fully adapted. I don’t think anybody adapts in the end anywhere, that’s the reality of this job. There are so many challenges here every day that I think a full adaptation will never be possible. Whether it’s Coach Shar or another coach, I don’t think anyone is fully adapted.
– You were joking that you couldn’t sit here anymore. Has the idea ever occurred to you that everything?
– Never. There has never been such a thought.
– During the first round of the Euroleague, his student Marus Grigonis became one of the best attacking defenders in the Euroleague, if not the best. What do you think helped him make this leap to the elite?
– First of all, all the qualities it has. You can throw and play two against two. This is the most important feature. In such situations, it is frequent and performed with great quality. He works very hard.
As for his personal qualities, he is a true professional. 100 percent. professional. He wants to win. And that is an important factor. I am young, but I have seen several professional basketball players, and there is one desire to win and another desire to win. He wants to win. And this is an important factor that characterizes it.
– Nigel Hayes has also become one of the most important players on the team. Can it be said that Steve Vasturios’ injury benefited peculiarly when Nigel moved to third position and his play in two positions contributed greatly to the improvement of the team’s game?
– I’ll start by saying that I tried to invite Nigel to Utah. I had no chance. We flew him to Utah for three days, two years ago, when he had already signed a contract with Grunwald, but he was able to go to the NBA. But we were only able to offer the two-way deal he had before with the New York Knicks. It doesn’t make much sense to sign a second two-way contract if you are such a player. At least I see it that way, and obviously he thought the same way. We didn’t get a chance to invite him, but we still flew because both myself and my former GM wanted him.
I’ve always enjoyed him as a player, so in fact, I’m not surprised by his performance. I really like the players in his position: fourth, the fourth number he can hit from a distance. It is very important to me. As a result, he knew that he would often hold the ball in his hands and have opportunities. I think it worked very well and I am very happy.
I want to mention that he works very hard, he tries hard to improve, and you can see that in the plaza.
I do not want to say that it came out in favor because the injured player does not benefit. But I want to emphasize that Nigel has adapted very well to third position. In it, he played for the coach last year. It’s not easy to play in two positions on either side of the court, and it was particularly good. On defense, he gives us his size and then he gets a kind of domino effect, because if Nigel plays third, it means Jankis or Augustine play fourth. As a result, we get even more size.
– Looking at the second half of the season, where would you like to see the most growth for the team?
– In defence. You need to be stable. In December we were very good on defense, we had a very good difference between points scored and missed. But it has to be stable, it can’t be just a month. Although a month and that’s fine compared to where we were before. You have to work on that, you have to want to be better.
– Tomorrow there will be a duel with Chimki. What makes this team special?
– We didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for this match due to the fact that we play cup matches, but obviously the main focus will be getting to know the opponents. The main leads are Swede and Booker, in my opinion, especially their combination. They feel great with each other in picenroles. This will be a great challenge. Chimki is an attacking team with a lot of potential, they play fast and shoot a lot of triples, they have a lot of players from far away. It will be important to stop the fast attack and not allow free throws. These will be the main challenges.
– Do you have information on whether Timma, Jerebko and Monia will play in tomorrow’s game?
– We are preparing for that.
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