Jasikevicius: “Panathinaikos is super-talented offensively” 0

Zalgiris takes on EuroLeague’s first home double week with Panathinaikos and Crvena Zvezda coming to Kaunas. Before these battles, coach Sarunas Jasikevicius is still not sure whether he will be able to rely on Marius Grigonis, who injured his foot and hasn’t practiced for the last two weeks.

“Grigonis will try to play. As of today, that’s the only information we have. It isn’t great, he’s not practicing, so it hasn’t changed. After this week, we might send him for a second opinion. We’ll see what’s going on. According to our information, it can’t get worse for him, but it isn’t getting much better.”

The 25-year-old sat out the game in Pasvalys, where Zalgiris dominated end-to-end and took home the season’s biggest win, 108-64.

Jasikevicius was happy with the commanding victory and noted that the players played as much as they would have done in a Sunday practice.

“Everything went according to plan, that’s how much we wanted to play with each player. We can even risk the score if the situation would come to that. Everyone has to play as much as they would have practiced on a Sunday evening here. Usually we have that more intense practice two days before the game. A day before we have a lighter one. Yesterday it was perfect, in my opinion.”

Panathinaikos heads into this game with some drastic changes, as the team fired coach Argiris Pedoulakis on Friday. That leaves some room for changes in the Greek team’s game.

“We can philosophize about the firing, what it’ll bring. Sometimes it’s a shock, usually it goes for the better, especially short-term. We’ll hope that’s not the case tomorrow. It’s a team with a great great talent. According to numbers, they are leaders in many offensive situations. Defensively, we’ll have to understand who we attack, how we attack. With Olympiacos we did that terribly. Yesterday with Pasvalys we played really impressively. I don’t pay too much attention to the opponent, but the important thing is the player’s reaction to some movements, adjustments. We have to do it much better than we did in Piraeus.”

Jasikevicius continued on the firing, noting that a lot can’t change in such a short time.

“In a way, it’s difficult to bring in something new in two days. They fired him on Friday, they played on Saturday. Next two days they can prepare. Maybe one two plays, maybe some players get more trust from the coach. You can’t change too much. But we need to look at ourselves. We’re looking at their tape, they’re looking at ours. They’ll look where Olympiacos caught us and try to do something similar. We’ll try to prepare for it.”

Both Zalgiris and Panathinaikos suffered defeats in the last round, as the Lithuanian side lost to Olympiacos, 74-83, while Panathinaikos had to give ALBA the upper hand. With both teams losing, the Greeks still have a one win advantage in the standings, as they hold a 4-4 record.

According to Saras, one of the keys to victory will be stopping Nick Calathes.

“We need to risk and give away something to a player like that. We’ll try to keep him away from the paint. Fredette is an outstanding scorer, Deshaun Thomas is having a great season. We can’t have him in iso situations.”

“In those 24 hours until tomorrow we have two video sessions and an evening practice today, morning one tomorrow. We need to remember who we’re playing against. Offensively, it’s Zalgiris basketball.”

EuroLeague gameday 9 against Panathinaikos starts half an hour earlier than usual, as the jumpball is set for 19:30.