LKL playoffs start with a huge Zalgiris win 0
Zalgiris began the Lithuanian League (LKL) playoffs with a rout of Rudupis in Kaunas. The hosts took a convincing 89:54 (14:13, 22:5, 26:16, 27:20) victory to move ahead 1-0 in the best-of-three quarterfinals tie.
Martynas Pocius nailed all five shots from down deep and collected 23 points to lead his side while Mantas Kalnietis added 16 points, 6 assists, 5 rebounds and 3 blocks. Povilas Butkevicius had a chance to shine and finished with 15 in his account as Tadas Klimavicius was deeply disappointed with the referees and finished only with 7 points with the visitors playing pretty rough defence, however, the bigman still grabbed 12 boards.
Evaldas Dainys, who left Lietuvos Rytas in mid-season was Rudupis’ leader in scoring with 13, Gintautas Vileita and Povilas Sakinis collected 12 each and Gediminas Orelik finished with 8.
The game was pretty close for the first quarter or so as the score was tied at 16-all with 11 minutes played. Zalgiris used a 20:2 run to blast ahead and were already up 36:18 after the spurt.
Zalgiris carried the momentum through to the third quarter as Travis Watson netted two points with a foul, Marcus Brown added a triple and Tadas Klimavicius scored four point in a row to make it embarrassing for Rudupis – 47:19.
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