Coach Schiller addresses Baskonia length and offensive rebounding 0

On Tuesday evening, Zalgiris takes on Baskonia Vitoria in Zalgirio Arena, as they start their double EuroLeague week. The team’s head coach traditionally spoke to the media, highlighting his opponents’ physicality and strength in the frontcourt.

“Baskonia is a good defensive team with a lot of length. They are also very disruptive, they create a lot of turnovers for the opponents, so it’s important to take care of the basketball. Offensively, similar to Panathinaikos, they’re statistically very good on the offensive rebounding. They’ve got length at the five and athleticism at the four. They really crash the glass”

With a double week coming up, the coach also talked about retaining the energy for the teams key players throughout the run.

It’s very important, even leading up to the games, to watch the practice laods. The question of the rotation is also kind of easy to answer, as we’re missing two perimeter guys in Garino and Vasturia. Our rotation is what it is. Controlling the practice loads are even more important, as we have no possibility to stretch this out rotationally.

The coach also expanded talking about Baskonia’s centers, pointing out their strengths.

They have four different centers, and all of them bring something different. Fall is extremely tall which itself is a challenge. Defensively it clogs the lane, offensively he’s just extremely big and you’ve got to try to keep him away from the rim. The other is Polonara, if they push him to the five, which enables him to play extremely mobile, and both bring challenges to it. Those are two completely different looks and both bring challenges. We’ve got to meet those challenges, and that’s the beauty of this league.