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The Kaunas “Žalgiris” team in the Euroleague continues its victorious march: Martin Schiller’s students achieved the third victory of the third trip, when they passed Crvena Zvezda in Belgrade 75:69. The Krepsinis.net portal offers the highlights of the most interesting matches.
Bad start. “Žalgiris” started the games badly and their extension after the big break. Kaunas, who seemed slow at the start of the match, scored just 2 points after practically 5 minutes of play and was 2: 9 behind. Everything turned upside down when the Steve Vasturia and Thomas Walkup tandem was replaced by Lukas Lekavičius and Rokas Jokubaitis. The same thing happened after the break, when Nigel Hayes hit a difficult triple and widened the gap to 9 points (42:33), but then Crvena Zvezda won the section 11: 0 and took the lead – 44:42. Again, the game of “Žalgiris” was moved by the changed tandem of the defenders.
The numbers of defenders in the “over / under” counts seem contrasting: with S.Vasturia “Žalgiris” he had -5, with Th.Walkup – minus 1. With L.Lekavičius he scored 5 points more than the guards, and here R .Kokubis was on the floor Žalgiris ”scored even 15 more points, which is the best result of 1-2 with Paulius Jankūnas. By the way, the captain scored 4 points, grabbed 7 balls and scored the same number of utility points, and his game really left a positive impression on both offense and defense.
For the first time, “Žalgiris” has difficulty moving at the beginning of the match, the same happened before the “Chimki” in the Moscow region, when year after year he did not fall. This time the attacks lacked movement without the ball and everything was static and slow, and the shots were made in 22-23 seconds of attack. Meanwhile, after the break, Žalgiris seemed unprepared for a very aggressive game from the opponents, which was as scheduled, as Saša Obradovičius was extremely angry about the failed “two on two” defense. Schiller should pay attention to this when a game starts badly.
Clear ideas in the attack. Žalgiris was very well prepared for the match, as he attacked his opponents through his most vulnerable place: the front line. Constant picenrols and a sharp game from the defenders became the key to victory. Ognjen Kuzmičius made the most of his time and Duopas Reathas made many tactical mistakes on defense. By the way, the African obtained the worst absolute “plus / minus” indicator, even -16.
The “Žalgiris” centers took advantage of their chances with great success: Jofferey Lauvergne not only shot 12 points, but also grabbed 8 balls, 4 of which were in attack. A good part of the French in the second half of the second half allowed the residents of Kaunas to break free. Martin Geben played only 6 minutes, but managed to lose 5 points and still hit the block for the opponent in the last second of the second half. Augustine Rubit scored 8 points in 17 minutes, including several difficult shots, and his over / under score is even over 14.
L. Lekavičius’ forays were the element we lost during the first two rounds of the tournament – he hit all 4 points from two points when he scored during the previous two encounters together. The two triples are the first of this season. The most attack-oriented player also made 4 assists, which is the second result for the team. It is very important to highlight the play of L.Lekavičius at a crucial moment, when “Žalgiris” was without points for 6 minutes, and the opponents reduced the deficit to one shot. The player then fouled the opponent and took both penalties, which became a huge step towards victory.
R. Jokubaitis can be praised not so much for the appearance of 9 points in the attack, but for the universal game: he bounced 6 balls (second result in the team) and distributed 5 assists. The young man spent up to 30 minutes on the parquet, which is his career record. R. Jokubaitis can also be commended for his dependable defense and solid leadership in team play. When Th.Walkup, the main organizer of the attacks, ran out of points, committed 4 times and scored -4 utility points, R. Jokubaitis’s performance was a real salvation for “Žalgiris”.
S.Vasturia in the initial five. The American quickly rallied two fouls against Jordan Loyd, and also made serious mistakes by covering his rival leader when the sniper had enough space and time to launch his shot. We saw something similar in Piraeus when Aaron Harrison quickly scored points just as he was in S.Vasturia’s care. This time, the defender at least partially made up for his mistakes on defense with two successful bouts on offense as he scored two points and added two points. S.Vasturia can play well in individual defense, but still clearly lacks a high level of fighting experience, because covering opponents in the Euroleague and the German championship are completely different things. S.Vasturia played just 13 minutes and this number of minutes is optimal considering there is no light winger in the Žalgiris rotation and Marius Grigonis has to play in this position. There’s a lot of talk about R. Jokubaitis’s intro in the starting five, but when he does so much useful work in the second five, it’s possible to start the match with S.Vasturia.
conclusion. This time Žalgiris found himself the opponent who was better prepared for the match, compared to Olympiacos or Chimki. The Greeks obviously lacked playing practice and the Russian club played with only 7 basketball players. Crvena Zvezda is far from being a team that claims eight, but it has no problems with the coronavirus and is in a good rhythm of play, as demonstrated by a previous meeting with Baskonia de Vitoria. The obvious gaps in Crvena Zvezda are on the front line, where there is a lack of more mobile stature, and newcomer Emanuel Terry will try to solve this problem. Taylor Rochestie will bring the line of experience and the Belgrade team will definitely look stronger.
As for the Žalgiris team, it is possible to highlight an excellent defense, which allows opponents to score only 68.7 points. Yes, the shot is small so far and the opponents had their own problems, but the move itself and the defense ideas seem solid, allowing us to hope that “Žalgiris” will continue to lay his foundations by acting in the opponent’s basket. In attack, we still saw problems against the aggressive defense, we also saw a dry 6 minute stretch, but for the moment such a game is enough to get wins. If before the season it was feared that M. Schiller would play his game and not pay attention to the weaknesses of his opponents, then this time we saw that the match plan was well prepared. How good will be the defense of “Žalgiris” that will be reviewed by the Istanbul team “Anadolu Efes” already this Thursday, which will become the most serious new competitor that the residents of Kaunas have agreed to this season.
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