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The Kaunas “Žalgiris” team continues their performance in the Euroleague and this time they will face the Valencian club “Valencia” at the start of the double week.
The Spanish team was the first to defeat the Kaunas team in this season’s tournament: then in Kaunas, Valencia won 94:82, although after two halves they still had a deficit of 8 points. However, after the break, the “orange” improved its defense, eliminated Žalgiris’s 3-pointers and got the victory, and the biggest difference between the two teams was 16 points.
During the first months of the season, Jaume Ponsarnau’s army suffered a poor performance in the local championship, where he posted a 4/6 ratio at the same time, but played better in the Euroleague. Now everything has turned upside down: in the Spanish league, Valencia has won up to 10 games (14/6) in a row and jumped to the Copa del Rey and climbed to 6th place in the standings.
Meanwhile, in the Euroleague, Valencia has started to drift – losing 4 times in the last five meetings – defeating only team Crvena Zvezda (91:71) at home in Belgrade. The team lost to Baskonia of Vitoria (70:71), lost to Barcelona of Barcelona (72:89) and AX Armani of Milan (80:95) without losing, and lost 77:90 to ASVEL last week in Vilerbana.
Valencia has excuses for such a poor performance: trauma and coronavirus. He did not eliminate the entire team, but did remove the main player, Bojan Dubljevičius, from the standings. He missed 4 of the 5 matches mentioned, so without him the team lost 3 times and achieved only 1 victory.
The return of the Montenegrin after COVID-19 took a long time, as the usual procedure is 14 days and two negative tests. However, the tall man had not played since December 30, and only returned to the park last Sunday. B.Dubljevičius, who plays after 23 minutes, is the most useful player on the team (14.5 points) and the second in terms of performance, 10.8 points. Much work awaits the centers of “Žalgiris”, because B. Dubljevičius is dangerous not only near the basket, but also further away from it – he hit 38.8 percent. (19/49) three points this season.
Important detail: B. Dubljevičius has yet to fully recover from his illness and will probably not play half his minutes, but this old man can be productive in 15 minutes.
The loss of B. Dubljevičius opened an opportunity for Mike Tobey to express himself: the two-on-two-style moving center posted profit of 11 points and 14 points. An American, like his colleague, is also dangerous on the perimeter: 37.5 percent. (32/12) hit. He remained in Kaunas with only 2 points and 1 pitch in 16.5 minutes, but managed to bounce 6 balls and record an efficiency of 8 points.
Louis Labeyrie, who already remembered how well he played against Žalgiris, is also suffering injuries this season. This season in Kaunas, the Frenchman scored 12 points and scored 16 points in 26 minutes. This time Labeyrie cannot waste time with Derrick Williams on the field because the American is traumatized and has already missed Sunday’s game with Baskonia, so his involvement on Wednesday is in doubt. L. Leeyrie scores 8.6 points in 20 minutes, recovers 3.9 balls and accumulates 11.3 points, and he realizes his chances very well: 75.6 percent. colon and 42.1 percent. 3-point hitting.
As for Williams, this American does not live up to his expectations, the wavy game does not allow him to register more than 9.9 points and an average of 10.3 points. The forward may feel uncomfortable sharing playing time with Labeyrie, but the Frenchman looks stronger than this former National Basketball Association (NBA) athlete.
A big threat to Žalgiris is Nikola Kaliničius, who has already scored 14 points and scored 17 utility points in Kaunas. The main easy lead has recently caught a wave of extremely good play, posting stats of 14.2 points and 18.2 utility points over a 5-game stretch, with a seasonal average of 10.3 points and 11.7 points. The Serbian also bounces 3 balls and makes 3 assists.
The difference between the first and the second meeting is that Martin Schiller did not use Nigel Hayes in the “third number” position at the time, and therefore N. Kaliničius had an advantage over his direct opponents, and now the American spends a lot. minutes playing with an easy lead, so N. Kaliničius expects a more difficult night. The importance of this player for Valencia is perfectly reflected in the number of minutes spent on the floor: 26, which is the team’s maximum.
Clement Prepelius must also be considered an important player, but this player also lacks stability. Slovenia recorded averages of 20 points and 20 points at a time in the Euroleague (rounds 7-10), but then only scored a double digit number of utility points 3 times in 9 matches, and this number did not exceed 13. K .Prepeličius is still the player who can impose a lot of 3-pointers on opponents and if it’s his day it’s hard to stop the defender. K. Prepeličius has shot twice as many triples as two (99:49) and records 38.4 percent. hitting what is a solid indicator. Despite the shaky game, K. Prepeličius’s points and efficiency averages are in the double digits: 11.2 points and 10.4 points.
Before Žalgiris, we should also see Vanja Marinkovich on the parquet, who scored 16 points in Kaunas, hitting 4 3-pointers from 8. The Serbian still played against CSKA Moscow, and then suffered an injury, which he did not play for 3 months and He returned last week in a meeting with ASVEL where in 3 minutes he did not stand out. V.Marinkovičius will expand the rotation in the defense circuit, where Joan Sastre, who suffered an injury, will be absent.
It would be a sin not to mention 34-year-old Sam Van Rossom. Belgas continues to be a very important Valencia player, scoring 6.3 points in 21 minutes, bouncing 2.5 balls, making 3.4 assists and accumulating 8.4 utility points. This player is very important in the organization of attacks, and his two games with 20 points and more than 20 utility points ended in team victories. Van Rossom is useful and does not score points: here he scored only 6 against Crvena Zvezda, but bounced 4 balls, made 6 assists, provoked 7 fouls and registered an efficiency of 21 points.
Still, the biggest disappointment is named Martin Hermannsson, who had to take over all the reins of the game, but never appeared in the starting five. Iceland had plenty of opportunities to develop as Valencia suffered injuries to defenders throughout the season but only managed to score double-digit points and add double-digit utility points in 20 games. Last week with ASVEL, he spent the most minutes on the court this season (27), but scored just 9 points (3/11 pitches) and scored 7 points. Hermannsson’s overall stats are 6 points and 6.7 points in 17 minutes.
Only the veterans Fernando San Emeterio (14 min, 5.5 points, 6.1 points) and Guillem Vives (5.3 points, 5.3 points) remain without mentioning. The latter often starts the match on the fifth start and competes after 20 minutes, his main tasks being defensive.
The teams with the best attack index in the Euroleague will go head-to-head on Wednesday: Valencia register 103.6 points per 100 attacks, while Žalgiris are only 0.5 points behind. The Valencia team has been in the defense ranking (101.8 points per 100 attacks) since the end, beating only the completely collapsed Chimki in the Moscow region (106.4 points), and Žalgiris is 11th ( 98.7 points for every 100 attacks).
Valencia defend themselves more successfully on their own ground than on that of their rivals: at home they allow their rivals to score 79 points, while at home this indicator is 5 points higher, 84. The opposite is the case of Žalgiris, losing 78.6 points at home. and allows opponents to earn 76.3 points.
For Žalgiris, this duel is also important in the fight for a place in the eight, as Valencia seeks a place in the playoffs and has one victory less. Of course, the main task is to win at least 1 point, but if the match is successful and the difference is close to 12 points, it should be remembered that a rematch of at least 13 points would be very good, since both teams can score the same number of wins.
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