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On Friday, Kaunas residents failed to create a sensation by playing with the leaders of the Euroleague: the constellation of Barcelona (9/2) led by Šarūnas Jasikevičius lost 62:73 at home.
In 12 rounds for Martin Schiller’s pupils, it was the most unsuccessful match, on the other hand, Žalgiris themselves spent the fewest points in their basket in the last month and a half.
Partly because the fight on the field sometimes reminded me of a fight played by Jean-Claude Van Damme with himself in the movie The Secondborn.
Mat nine months ago Š. At Žalgiris Stadium, Jasikevičius was still trotting alongside the sideline on the host bench, not the guests.
“Obviously, Shar knows us as pecked. We know him too. In the Euroleague, everyone is very well prepared to play against a particular opponent, but this time it is done especially well.
They focused on defense on the perimeter, so a lot of our shots were dribbled, which interfered with opponents. Barcelona is to be commended for implementing the defense plan. Thomas Walkup commented on the diminishing accuracy of the Euroleague three-point predecessors to attack from afar.
However, the Kaunas team also managed to make life easier for rivals.
According to Rokas Jokubaitis, the hosts had the opportunity to surprise the favorites in a similar way as Vilerbano ASVEL did in the previous round.
Barcelona didn’t really play their best basketball, they made a lot of mistakes. Our defense today looked really better than before. It is a pity we did not take the risk.
As you can see, we got caught up on offense, especially when they started trading caps on five on defense. We needed more movement, but we didn’t adapt, and those throws weren’t useful in the last seconds of the attack in most cases, “lamented R. Jokubaitis.
The 20-year-old defender was the most productive of the hosts’ ranks (15 points), but blamed himself for a failed attempt to effectively get the ball into the basket in the decisive half.
R. Jokubaitis promised “serious conclusions” because he overestimated his strength for the second time this season.
After the duel, Mažeikiai also recounted the conclusions that the entire “Žalgiris” team has already drawn, looking for a way out of the labyrinth of failures.
– How does it feel to play when Shar is near the square but doesn’t yell at you? – we asked R. Jokubaitis
– Very funny. In the first half, before leaving for the square, Marek (Blaževičius – Delphi) I said it was strange playing against Shar for the first time. It was an interesting experience, it was fun to hear from the side what he was saying to his players while actively working behind the sidelines. It’s fun to remember those times.
– It’s the game against Š. Was the team coached by Jasikevičius an additional encouragement?
– Done. I didn’t want to get so stressed out because things like that aren’t always helpful. I started as a normal match, only with a slightly different spice.
– 73 points lost: a reflection of an improved defense?
– I can’t say the defense was great superbut the number itself is one of the best for us this season. We have been preparing for this game for a long time, we have been rehearsing the defense rules against Barcelona since Monday, we have learned their combinations. We looked very good, we defended aggressively. But we only scored 62 points …
– The feeling of playing against Shar is strange, and is Shar himself leading the game training for Barcelona?
– Those of us who have been in the team and in recent seasons remember those combinations well. Even the names are not very different. What was in Žalgiris is now in the Barcelona team, the same system as Jasikevičius. As we can see, so far it works very well.
– 17 intercepted balls – the result of knowing those combinations?
– I cannot say that, but they did not feel very free in the square, we caused many errors. I just don’t know how many of them we turned into counterattacks, it seems to me that we didn’t make much use of them.
– One of those counterattacks failed to load the ball into the basket for the second time this season. Did this failure really hurt you?
– I do not know what to say. Probably all of Lithuania understands how I feel inside now. We were able to reduce the delay to one point and instead it became -6 … what can I say, a very reckless move. Once again, I was burned equally, it is necessary to draw serious conclusions.
– Did you hear the club manager Paulius Motiejūnas yelling from the third floor?
– Yes. A few days ago we had a meeting of the whole team where we stressed that we had to be more dominant, to support each other. And it really felt like a spare bench. Even the support was heard from the shelter. This adds a boost, keeps heads from lowering.
– In terms of unity, how does the dressing room react to a series of six losses?
– I don’t think having such a nucleus of older Lithuanians will break it. Of course, six losses is not the most pleasant. But there are countless games ahead this month. It’s sad now, but on Saturday we will have to forget everything, because we will have to prepare for the match with Vilnius “Rytas”, then we will play with Kėdainiai, on the nose, and a double week of the Euroleague. We have that schedule.
Of course, the Euroleague is still the tournament that we focus the most on. When you can’t win, you get sad in the locker room. But it really isn’t broken.
– Given these setbacks, what is Coach Schiller trying to do?
– Your methodology is now a little different than before. During training, we put a lot more emphasis on defense. It seems that we are drawing conclusions, we are doing better in training. As you can see, we defended better in the game. Hopefully we keep working even better.
Žalgiris – Barcelona Match Stats
The only traumatized Patricio Garino missing from the ranks of “Žalgiris”, Víctor Claveras did not help the guests.
On Friday, the teams met for the 31st time in history and 26 matches ended with a pro Catalan result.
Barcelona defeated the residents of Kaunas for the fourth time in a row. Last season, Barça, still coached by Svetislavas Pešičius, took the victory from Nemunas Island by 93:86. Žalgiris could no longer play in the second leg last March, because already on the bus on his way to the airport he learned about the Euroleague season, which was suspended due to the pandemic.
Next week, the people of Žalgiris will visit the Panathinaikos in Athens (Greece) and Barcelona will host the Olympia in Milan (Italy).
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