“Žalgiris”, which sprouted in the middle of the match, surpassed the scarce Kurtinaitis soldier / News

A day later than planned, but Kaunas “Žalgiris” (2-0) achieved the second victory in the Euroleague. Martin Schiller’s pupils in the Mytiščiai party 84:70 (17:20, 24:12, 26:16, 15:22) beat the Chimki team (0-2) in the Moscow region with only seven players.

It was the first regular season game in the history of the Euroleague this Saturday. The match was supposed to take place on Friday, but yesterday Chimki did not receive the results of the COVID-19 tests, so the duel was postponed to the weekend.

Due to coronavirus and injuries, Chimki was thinned by Kaunas residents at the end of the second quarter, at the beginning of the third quarter.

Before the long break, Žalgiris ran 21: 4 and the deficit of 8 points (20:28) turned into a 9-point lead (41:32).

Kaunas started the third quarter with a 13: 2 streak and the teams have already awarded 20 points – 54:34.

“In such a situation, I don’t even want to talk about the match,” said Marius Grigonis, who scored 21 points after the duel. “I’m glad we played in general and we have to keep going.”

What led to the victory anyway?

“We have 12 players, they are 6-7. That is obvious,” replied the sniper from Žalgiris.

After winning for the second time in two games, “Žalgiris” is one of five Euroleague teams that have yet to stumble.

Žalgiris last started the Euroleague season with two wins in 2012.

However, Žalgiris’ good humor did not shine through after the game.

“We have a lot to improve,” said Artūras Milaknis. “We did not play as expected, we stumbled with the zone and trade defense.”

Chimki: Jonas Jerebko 23 (12 rebounds, 30 points), Devin Booker 14, Vladislav Odinokov 11, Vyacheslav Zaitsev 10.

“Žalgiris”: Marius Grigonis 21 (5/8 trit.), Nigel Hayes 15 (2/9 trit.), Artūras Milaknis 14, Augustine Rubitas 12 (5 rev.

Chimki faced Žalgiris in a very sparse lineup. Five basketball players – Greg Monroe, Janis Timma, Maxim Berashkov, Yevgeny Voronov and Jordan Mickey – suffer from coronavirus, Stefan Jovičius and Aleksejus Švedas are traumatized and Errick McCollum is isolated.

Kurtinaitis registered 8 basketball players, the minimum required by the Euroleague, but Dairis Bertans was unable to play due to injury.

Žalgiris did not have full capacity either. Due to the deteriorating condition of the road in the Euroleague, Patricio Garino remained without debate in the green jersey, and main center forward Joffrey Lauvergne remained in Kaunas after his coronavirus test on Wednesday came back positive. After another test on Friday, he came back negative, now awaiting the results of Saturday’s test.

If the second consecutive test is negative, Lauvergne will be able to join the squad for next week’s Euroleague match.

Lauvergne’s place in the top five was taken by Martin Geben.

“Žalgiris” has never beaten “Chimki” in their arena – all 5 matches were lost in the Euroleague. In general, the ratio of matches between them is 8-2 in favor of the Russians.

“Žalgiris” will not play a postponed match with Kėdainiai “Nevėžis-Optibet” this weekend, next week in Belgrade on Tuesday he will fight with local “Crvena Zvezda”, and on Thursday he will host Istanbul “Anadolu Efes” .