Lietuvos Rytas even the series in Vilnius 0

Simonas Baranauskas, LithuaniaBasketball.com

Just when the Lithuanian League (LKL) finals series seemed to be slipping out of Lietuvos Rytas’ reach, the defending Lithuanian champions reacted and overcame Zalgiris 81-70 (13-15, 26-16, 24-22, 21-8) after a well-played fourth quarter to tie the series at 1-1.

“Lietuvos Rytas deserved to win. We had the control of the game in our hands in the first half, but we just started playing really bad in the second. We have to win at home now. I believe we’ll be back in the series,” Zalgiris’ coach Ilias Zouros said, adding: “We lost because we played bad, there’s nothing to talk about here. You should ask questions to the team that won. We played bad and lost.”

Having led by double-digits in the first half, Zalgiris slowed down in the third quarter, but still had a five point lead at 65-60 heading into the final period behind 26 points from Paulius Jankunas.

However, the club from Vilnius went on a mighty 15-0 run inspired by good defense – especially against Jankunas, who was scoreless in the last quarter – to take a double-digit lead for the first time in the game at 75-65 and decide the outcome of the game.

“I want to congratulate my players with the nice victory and a super defensive performance in the second half. It was indeed the defensive side of things that won us the game, as we allowed a team like Zalgiris to score only seven points in the last period. That’s purely a fruit of our defense,” Lietuvos Rytas’ coach Darius Maskoliunas spoke in the press-conference.

The captain of Zalgiris, Jankunas, still finished with an impressive performance of 26 points, 7 rebounds and 9 drawn fouls for a total ranking of 37. With that said, the power forward was totally cut off from his teammates when it really mattered.

Nobody else stepped up for Zalgiris in the fourth quarter, but Omar Samhan had a rather good game with 8 points, converting on 4-of-5 field goals. Tomas Delininkaitis scored 7 while Mindaugas Kuzminskas and Marcus Brown added 5 points each.

Kenan Bajramovic had a team-high 14 points for Lietuvos Rytas, but it was Brad Newley, who had the best performance for the hosts. The Australian swingman had an all-around performance, finishing the game with 12 points, 6 rebounds, 3 steals and 3 assists as well.

Lietuvos Rytas’ young center Jonas Valanciunas had a much better game than in the first one scoring 11 points while Simas Jasaitis also reached double-digits and finished with 11 points as well, including some very important three-pointers late in the game.

“We are now tied at 1-1, there’s nothing to celebrate yet. Of course, we’re happy to have defeated Zalgiris for the first time, but we’re going to stay fully concentrated and try to further improve our game before the game in Kaunas,” said Lietuvos Rytas head coach Darius Maskoliunas.

Zalgiris to score only seven points in the last period. That’s purely a fruit of our defense,” Maskoliunas said.

The third game of the series will be played in Thursday when the finals return back to Kaunas, where Zalgiris will try to defend their home-court advantage, while Lietuvos Rytas will be seeking to snatch a crucial road win.