From learning tricks to learning an unforgiving head – “Žalgiris” stopped the series of failures with focus / News

“Marius asks for a change”, – shouted a Lithuanian from “Žalgiris” from the bench, when Marius Grigonis, who played the first 8 minutes of the match without rest, showed a desire to relax.

Martin Schiller had already prepared a change: Nigel Hayes was standing in the secretariat, waiting his turn to take the place in Grigonis’ place. Hearing a comment from a teammate, Hayes turned to the bench and, raising his index finger, showed that he would immediately allow Grigon to rest.

Sometimes it all starts with the little things. A warning about a barrier that arrived on time and in place, a defensive hand, or a future episode of an opponent’s reading.

And sometimes that little thing is mastery of a foreign language.

Hayes, who is playing in Kaunas for the second year, has been learning the Lithuanian language here from day one and is now starting to pay off not only outside the square, but also in the square.

Hayes, probably the best basketball player defending himself in Žalgiris, sometimes no longer needs English, the universal language of basketball.

“If you listen, you will hear that I speak Lithuanian in my defense, I will report on combinations,” Hayes told the “BasketNews.lt” website after the victory in Athens. – It also helps in the Euroleague – if I am the only American in the square, we can announce combinations in Lithuanian and the competitors do not understand it. This is an advantage.

We can name the combination by number or word, the competitors don’t understand it, and when we accelerate, it is too late for them to understand. Mastering the language always helps. “

Having become a solid major heavyweight forward this season, Hayes is now even more important when Steve Vasturia dropped out of the lineup due to injury. Thus, the polyglot, who did not play the third number at the beginning of the season, will now fill the gaps in two positions.

Hayesas had a chance to turn things around and after a short fight with the defender, Paulius Jankūnas finally got the ball in.

“I saw Marius say something to the guys and they yelled that Marius was asking for a change. I looked at the bench as if to say I would, and Hayes remembered the episode at the end of the first half. – I learned quite a bit of Lithuanian. I try to listen a lot, I don’t know if my colleagues like it, but I’m very polite. I try to listen to everything I can and I learn so much ”.

Like language skills, Hayes’ versatility in Žalgiris Square is an irreplaceable asset.

On Friday in Athens, Nigel defended himself against Aaron White, Ben Bentil, Ioannio Papapetrou or Howardo Sant-Roos. Players of varying styles and positions, from attacking from behind to blasting through to shooting from a distance, Hayes withstood their challenges everywhere.

“I like to play third, that’s great,” Hayes said. – In the Euroleague, we have sometimes suffered from tall opponents in third place like Papapetrou. If Steve was here, or playing Mary, he would try to focus against them. When I play, they don’t focus on third position in front of me. Competitors don’t do that with fourth numbers either.

It’s good for us that we can change more on defense. When I play the third number, we can exchange the fourth and fifth numbers, I can help in the fight for the balls. And in the attack I am more involved. I don’t necessarily get more combinations, but I get the ball more often. The more you touch the ball, the more involved you will feel. “

Hayes’ play on both sides of the field dragged the team down when it needed the final push late in the game.

With Panathinakos running 15: 5 and approaching 67:72, Hayes broke the three-point line to the basket with a minute and a half left to play and scored two points from a foul.

Soon, on the other side of the field, he saw what the opponents would do and he slid towards the transmission line, taking the ball and scraping the field. A quick counterattack failed, but former Agustín Rubit rebounded the ball and caused a foul.

“I really enjoyed the Nigel show,” Schiller said after the duel. – In defense (number three) he will help us with his size. Suddenly starting to play on the perimeter is not very easy. But we’ll get used to it. “

Hayes says she has recently started paying close attention to her fitness. To do this, he used fitness trainer Sigitas Kavaliauskas and the latest technology – wearing a special vest that captures various statistical components, Hayes seeks to base his activity on both sides of the plaza.

“In training, the system captures many different numbers, but one of them is the distance traveled. I know that if I get to that magic number (which I won’t reveal if someone listens to me), it will mean that my activity was very good, ”Hayes said. – To reach that number you have to be very active, you have to move, sprint and run with all your might. If I do, I know I did a good job. We started working on that a few weeks ago, and if you pay attention to my defense, you will probably see the difference. “

At the end of the 6-loss series, “Žalgiris” had more heroes. Marius Grigonis made his first 7 shots and scored 18 points before the long break. He finished the duel with 24 points (second best result of his career) and 6 successful triples (career record).

In the second half of the game, former basketball players less visible before played an important role. When Panathinaikos tied the score (50:50), Artūras Milaknis hit a 3-pointer, Paulius Jankūnas corrected Rokas Jokubaitis’s wrong pitch, and Augustine Rubitas scored 5 straight points and Žalgiris sped 10-0.

Finally, Jokubaitis said his word. After making 5 mistakes in the first three halves, most of them extremely stupid, and missing the first three pitches, the twenty-year-old began to weigh his performance in the positive direction by scoring a three-point point at the end of the last. fourth.

In total, he scored 10 points during the decisive quarter, and this is a great credit to coach Schiller: the coach kept the young defender on the field despite all his mistakes.

“I know he sounds suspicious, but I trust him a lot,” Schiller said after the duel. – Last season in the Euroleague he played an average of 6 minutes, this year he plays more than 20. And for some reason, it brings benefits to the field. I just trust him.

Play with a certain youth, which does not scare important moments. . “

“The rock does not surprise us,” Jankūnas said. – We know how you train, how you work, what the level is now and what it can be. Maybe for him sometimes it is even too much, because everyone writes, everyone talks, interviews every day, second-hand stories … Although everything is fine for him, his parents are polite, a serious man, but still is young. There was an NBA rookie swap, scouts kept calling, those thoughts were still alive, and maybe it was harder for him to focus on the game.

But here is the work of us, the elderly, and today, after two quarters, we said: “Davai, Rock, focus and start playing from scratch. “We will continue to emphasize this to him, he needs to be taken out of the attention bubble so that he can focus again and, based on concentration and psychology, be Rock as usual.”

It was also an extraordinary night for Jankūnas himself. Although no one emphasized this too much before the duel, Jankūnas became the basketball player who played the most games in the Euroleague. The Athens match was his 354th career, one more than he continues to play for Felipe Reyes.

After the game, Jankūnas got into an impromptu shower for his teammates in the locker room, when he was drunk on drinking water.

“A lot of work has been done, but I keep looking forward, even though I have played for many years. I still enjoy basketball and am happy to be able to continue playing, ”said Jankūnas, who soon added greetings from his teammates. “The team does not forget those things, we will probably have to pay the bill of the others in the hotel, but whatever we do, we play for that.”

“If there was no victory, I do not think we would have spoken about it with much force. Definitely not in that mood. Then it would be silly to enjoy a record. That would show the team a bad tone,” added the captain of “Žalgiris”.

Only a good tone was shown in Athens on Friday: from learning the language of peers to tricks to believe in yourself despite a bad start. The series of six losses was interrupted and this was done thanks to the real effort of the team.