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The Kaunas “Žalgiris” team ended the double week of the Euroleague with a defeat, when at Zenit 65:77 they lost to the basketball players of “Zenit”. The Krepsinis.net portal provides the most interesting aspects of the duel, distinguishing what was successful or not and what was good and bad.
A game imposed by Zenit. Xavier Pascual’s army plays the slowest basketball in the Euroleague with the fewest number of attacks and that is evident, since the line-up is not deep and with a limited rotation he cannot maintain a high level of play for the full 40 minutes.
Meanwhile, the basketball in favor of “Žalgiris” is faster and more effective with quick attacks, but there were none. From the beginning of the duel, Zenit began to throw the balls in a flat place and gave a kind of opportunity to start with more success to the Žalgiris team, but the first four free triples flew the country, and Joffrey Lauvergne did not happen account of a good opportunity under
The Frenchman may have been an elite midfielder in the eyes of Chimki fans in the Moscow region after the duel, but this week he had to bring everyone back to the reality that this is far from the case. J.Lauvergne completes the attacks perfectly when he catches the ball in the air, but he has many problems when it comes to performing the actions with the ball himself.
If the first two halves were not successful for Žalgiris’ team (36 points), then the second half was only 26 points. The worst result of this season was recorded only in that tragic show with Maccabi Tel Aviv, where he scored 23 points in the first two quarters.
Zenit replacement factor. At the beginning of the second half, X. Pascual was forced to throw a five on the floor, which included three Russians (Andrei Zubkov, Vitaly Fridzon, Anton Pushkov) and two Americans (Billy Baron, KCRivers). “Žalgiris” was expecting that: although A.Puškovas opened with two points (19:14), the guests during those 2 minutes. and 43 sec. he scored 4 points and fouled the opponents 4, which was a really important element.
Unfortunately, the contribution of the same reserve players in the second half of the duel turned into a significant figure: the Russian trio scored 18 points. A. Zubkov scored 9 points by hitting 2 3s of 3 when he pitched 2 of the last 4 games together. A. Pushkov scored 6 points during his 10 minute span and V. Fridzon scored three points. 23 percent The three points of the team were scored by this trio, who never shine in performance and became a very important aspect, which allowed the second half of the duel to save a bit of leadership and prevent Žalgiris from breaking the match.
A significant figure became B. Baron, who scored 3 points in the first two halves, but added 8 points in the second half. At the end of the third quarter, his 5 points in a row gave him a 7-point lead and three points at the middle of the fourth quarter widened the gap to 9 points.
Judging the line and missing price. This time the match officials chose a line where high and frequent contact was allowed. The Euroleague is already dominated by physical basketball, where players do not shy away from sacrificing their bodies for the sake of good defense. Such a tough game was a favorable factor for the Zenit team, which bases its game on very tough defenses and strong barriers that free the pitchers. It should be noted that, in fact, there was no bias in the actions of the referees and the rules were treated equally on both sides. Of course, there are mistakes on both sides in every match, but this time the whistles were not the cause of defeat or victory.
Mateušas Poniška was like a pitball who bit Marius Grigonis’ leg and did not let go of him during the entire duel. The episode provoked much discussion and passion, when the Pole passed the ball and hit Žalgiris in the face with his elbow, and no foul was called. M. Grigonis had the cheek pierced and blood appeared, but this did not become an argument for the referees to record the foul. In that episode, in the second half, “Žalgiris” began to pay close attention to the disputes with the judges and pulled them out of the crayfish, which Rokas Jokubaitis admitted after the duel interview.
“Žalgiris” really knows how to take off the field, which has been demonstrated this season in the game with Bayern Munich, but it is not basketball where he feels better. M. Grigonis himself was extremely suppressed by the Pole when he scored 10 points, but scored only 6 utility points. Meanwhile, M.Ponitka herself scored 15 points in 28 minutes, bounced 6 balls and recorded the profit of 19 points. At times, it seemed that Mr. Ponitka had a hard time catching his breath and his reserves of strength had to be drained considerably in the first part of the duel, but this did not happen and he spent a great match on both sides of the field for the entire 40 minutes.
In the third quarter, it was Žalgiris’ fouls that allowed Zenit to gain the upper hand. After 3 minutes of play, Thomas Walkup committed the 3rd foul and sat on the bench, which was a sign of danger as Žalgiris suffocated Kevin Pangas with his excellent defense and did not allow him to even move freely.
At the end of the quarter, unnecessary fouls hit hard – twice in a row after inaccurate shots, Žalgiris immediately offended his opponents – Augustine Rubit once awarded points to A.Pushkov, and the next time Martin Geben sent fines to throw to B. Baron. Thus, in the last 2 minutes, Zenit scored 4 of their 3 points without problems and increased the gap to 7 points. It would seem that the difference is small, but during the last quarter Žalgiris’ team did not get closer to 4 points and in those matches, where there were no big shots (the biggest “dry” section 6: 0 “Zenit” and 5: 0 “Žalgiris”), became a significant factor.
Defenders of “Žalgiris”. If lately Th.Walkupas and especially Lukas Lekavičius and Rokas Jokubaitis were in the foreground, this time they were in the front rows, this trio as a whole scored 31 points, which is almost half of the team’s total.
R. Jokubaitis was very noticeable in the first half, when veteran V. Fridzon, who had no chance to guess his younger opponent, Žalgiris scored 8 points, but was completely stopped after the break and didn’t score a point. By the way, after the break, said Russian stopped playing.
L.Lekavičius took over from R. Jokubaitis, who was without points during the first two halves, but in the second half he was the player who kept “Žalgiris” above the water, as evidenced by his 11 points out of 29 , which were picked up by the entire team in 20 minutes. L. Lekavičius’s horse is there when the game stops, turns into a static attack, takes the initiative and solves the fate of the attack with his floaters and sharp escapes.
Th.Walkup’s performance this time was excellent not only defensively, but also in attack, as he scored 12 points, half of which, on penalty kicks, he scored 6 out of 6. Interestingly, this season Th.Walkup has thrown alone 19 penalties and he threw the majority (12) in two games: 6 against Zenit on Friday and 6 in Vilerbane against ASVEL. He made the remaining pitches in three more games.
Loose balls. On Wednesday in Moscow, it became very clear that the Žalgiris were killed by undefeated balls on defense, as CSKA repeated their shots and won the fight even 44:26.
This time Žalgiris lost the fight under the baskets again – 28:37. It is already becoming a trend for LKL champions to lose focus after imprecise shots from opponents. This is very visible in the actions of J. Lauvergne, who seems to forget that he has to jump and collect the ball, which is what Nikola Milutinov or Artūras Gudaitis do at that moment. The Lithuanian grabbed up to 5 balls in attack, which is the absolute best result of this season. Zenit scored up to 19 points from 9 rebounds: 8 in the first half of the game and 11 in the next two. “Žalgiris” caught 10 balls, but scored only 4 points, which is a big difference from how the hosts of the field took advantage of those opportunities.
M. Geben in 7.5 min. grabbed 4 balls (all attacking) and that’s mostly along with 19 min. Paulius Jankūnas, who played. Meanwhile, J. Lauvergne bounced only 2 balls in 24 minutes, A. Rubit registered that number in 15 minutes and Nigel Hayes in 24.5 minutes. grabbed 3 balls. Obviously, the figures in the first line are too small.
conclusion. Žalgiris remains winless against teams in the top five of the Euroleague: CSKA and Zenit have lost twice, and the men of Barcelona, Real Madrid and AX Armani in Milan have lost.
This time, the double week ended without victories, but there can be no greater reproaches. With Zenit, a much better game was shown than in the first round in Kaunas, and everything was determined by small details such as undefeated balls in attack, loose triples and stupid fouls. In truth, Zenit is defeated by their rivals Žalgiris. Žalgiriai’s plan worked well on defense, as evidenced by the eloquent detail: Zenit shot 27 3-pointers and just 21 from two, which is 10 shots than usual from close range and 5 more shots from the perimeter than average.
“Žalgiris” is hit very hard by great centers such as N. Milutinov (15 points, 6 points, 23 points), Walter Tavares (22 points, 12 points, 34 points) or A. Gudaitis (15 points, 8 rebounds, 28 points ), who dominates against J. Lauvergne or A. Rubit. This issue needs to be addressed as it is no longer a coincidence but a real trend.
The double week of the Euroleague placed Žalgiris in eighth position in the regular season, and Valencia Valencia has exactly the same win / loss balance. Next week the Olympiacos team arrives in Piraeus, which is very unpredictable when they manage to bring down Maccabi in Tel Aviv but lose at home to ASVEL in Wilerban.
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