Siauliai’s second half comeback no good to beat Zalgiris 0
Zalgiris wasted a solid advantage, but still came out on top of Siauliai in a Lithuanian League match up. The club from Kaunas defeated the hosting Siauliai club 77:70 (23:13, 25:16, 15:24, 14:17).
Danius Salenga top-scored for Zalgiris with 14, Marcus Brown added 13, shooting only 3-of-11 from long range. Mantas Kalnietis collected 12 as Mario Delas and Travis Watson netted 8 points each.
Siauliai were led mostly by Mindaugas Kuzminskas, who scored 21 points and grabbed 8 rebounds. Derrick Low and Vytautas Sarakauskas contributed with 12 points each as Raitis Grafs had 10.
Zalgiris showed their class from the get-go and used a 10:2 run at the end of the first half to further increase the lead to 19 points – 48:29.
The halftime interval didn’t seem to have much influence on the game as Kalnietis’ basket made it a 20-point game at 61:41.
Siauliai, however, used a 12-zip run decrease the deficit to single-digits – 53:61. Mindaugas Kuzminskas free throw had shrunk the lead to five points, but Gailius missed a shot on the next possession while Mario Delas used a two-pointer to pull the sides apart.
“We wanted to fulfil the expectations of our fans. There were talks, that Siauliai are capable of fighting with everyone. It’s nice that so many spectators came so we didn’t want to disappoint anyone. However, the pressure and overdoing things failed us,” Antanas Sireika, head coach of Siauliai commented.
Facebook comments