LKL: Zalgiris beats Prienai and Juventus in two days 0

Zalgiris gained two wins in the Lithuanian League: a wire-to-wire 97-63 victory over the visiting Prienai on Sunday and another home win 76-62 vs. Juventus Utena on Monday. Kaunas team improved its record to 26-4.

In game vs. Prienai Zalgiris played without James Anderson and with the other usual starters seeing limited action, but still crushed the visitors.

Zalgiris ended the first quarter with a 10-2 run during which Tomas Dimsa and Donatas Tarolis scored all points and Zalgiris took 24-12 lead. Darius Songaila, Vytenis Lipkevicius and Robertas Javtokas extended the run to 16-2, and Lukas Lekavicius extended the lead to 33-14 after only 2 minutes in the second quarter. The hosts cruised the rest of the way, as they led 47-26 at halftime, and broke the game wide open with a 15-0 run that bridged third and fourth quarters for 76-47 margin.

Songaila had 16 points in as many minutes, Dimsa scored 15, Lipkevicius 13, and Arturas Milaknis netted 10 in victory over Prienai.

The game with Juventus was a bit harder. Defense prevailed in the first quarter, which was anyway won 15-10 by Zalgiris. The hosts ran away in second quarter, when Milaknis and Lekavicius with 3s made it to 30-12 and the margin remained the same at the half 45-27.

The third quarter saw the margin rise to 57-33, but Juventus did not give up and pulled back to 61-48 at 30 minutes mark. However, they could not get closer and Zalgiris won the game in the end by the score 76-62.

Anderson led the way with 15 points, Siim-Sander Vene added 10 and Songaila 8 in 26th win of the season.