Martin Schiller after the defeat of “East”: “We did not expect Buva to hit from afar”

Schiller suffered his third defeat in the Lithuanian Basketball League (LKL) game and, temporarily at least, was forced to feel what it means to be in the second league.

“Žalgiris” (21-3) on Sunday 85:86 in Kaunas landed in Vilnius “Rytas” (22-6), which lost the first place because of the 22nd victory in the championship, and not because of the relationship between wins and failure.

“Ivan” was led to victory by Ivan Buva, who scored as many as 32 points and one outscored the three “Žalgiris” midfielders who played on Sunday: Martin Geben, Marek Blaževičius and Augustine Rubita.

The 29-year-old and 208 cm tall Croatian got 8 out of 10, 3 out of 4, 7 out of 8 fines.

“Buva needs to be evaluated for his shots, especially at the end of the match. The opponent, who has scored 6 points out of three out of 15 in this LKL championship, was praised by” Žalgiris “coach M. Schiller. – He can hit He’s not even known for making such pitches.

This time he hit the first few and felt the launch. We were waiting for him to play for the basket, we didn’t even expect him to hit from far away. “

“Žalgiris” was not the only problem in this match.

Andrew Goudelock scored 14 points, including a particularly important triple in 50 seconds of play, after the American shot “Rytas” tied the score.

The turning point for “Rytas” was scored by Dovis Bičkauskis, who attacked during “Rytas’s” long attack.

“Žalgiris” had only two team fouls, so twice intentionally stopped the last attack of “Rytas”. But for the third time D.Bičkauskis broke into the basket and caused Augustine Rubit to be fouled after a nimble axis.

When D. Bičkauskis hit the first fine, he missed the second, leaving Žalgiris no space to organize a logical attack.

Eriko Ovcharenko / 15min nuotr./Rungtynių akimirka

“We are not happy with the performance on defense in both parts of the game. We defended well only for the first 5-6 minutes, and then the defense was poor, – M. Schiller spoke at the press conference after the game. We could win when Thomas Walkup spoke at the end of the game with a service attack, but we had problems with the defense throughout the game, it is unsatisfactory.

However, again, Rytas is a very good team. She is second in the league, congratulations to them. “

The rotation of the Kaunas team in this match was short, as Joffrey Lauvergne is saved after a pelvic tear, Nigel Hayes is infected with COVID-19 and Artūras Milaknis receives treatment for a long-lasting injury.

The substitutes did not give the national champions a good boost, and Steve Vasturia committed twice against the Vilnius players who attacked from a distance.

“Obviously, he didn’t want to offend, but it happened the way we didn’t want to,” Schiller said.

The match with the East was postponed. It was supposed to take place three weeks ago, but then due to the COVID-19 case in the Kaunas team ranks on match day, the decision was made to postpone the match.

Now Žalgiris awaits an intense moment. Although the club has already finished its performance in the Euroleague this week, it is time to chase the number of games in the LKL championship.

“I don’t want that to be an excuse,” said Schiller, whose men had a three-day break after the last Euroleague game against Panathinaikos Athens in Kaunas. – We play with this calendar all season and we cannot use it as an excuse.

Now we will play three games a week all the time because before they moved. We need to adapt. “

Žalgiris will play the next game on Tuesday, when he will host Alytus “Dzūkija” at home.

In case of victory, “Žalgiris” would return to first place in the LKL championship, where this season “Rytas” has won twice in three games.