Zalgiris win vs. Lietuvos Rytas raises no doubts 0
Zalgiris triumphed in the battle of the giants once again, holding on to a 67:64 victory in a Lithuanian League (LKL) game against Lietuvos Rytas in Kaunas on Saturday.
Martynas Pocius scored 17 to lead Zalgiris, Marcus Brown added 15, while Dainius Salenga had 14. Donatas Zavackas top-scored for Lietuvos Rytas with 18 points and 6 rebounds, Martynas Gecevicius had 11 points, 7 assists and 5 rebounds, as Arturas Jomantas also scored 11 with 6 boards.
Before the game Rimas Kurtinaitis, coach of Lietuvos Rytas, pointed out that it will be vital which point guard will do his job better – neither Mantas Kalnietis, nor Bojan Popovic had a good night. Kalnietis was 1-of-11 from the field, but had 6 assists to finish with an efficiency rating of 3. Popovic made 1-of-8 field goals and dished out exactly 0 assists, making 8-of-9 free throws, ending up with an efficiency rating of 5.
Despite a fairly slow start, Zalgiris took the leading seat early in the game, leading by a lone point after the first period – 17:16.
The hosts went on a 9:0 run from the beginning of the second quarter. Lietuvos Rytas could not score for more than 5 minutes in this period and only Martynas Gecevicius stopped the silence with a jumper. With half time nearing, Brown and Pocius drained a three-pointer each to make it a 13-point game at 36:23. Lietuvos Rytas answered with a 6-point rally and shrunk the deficit to 7.
The third quarter saw the visitors from Vilnius get to 5 points, but Zalgiris did not let Lietuvos Rytas get any close and regained the control – 44:34.
Jomantas was terrific on the defense late in the game doing all the dirty work and causing a lot of troubles for Zalgiris’ offense and as soon as he pushed the ball up court, the hosts started to have problems.
At one point in the last quarter Zalgiris led by 15 at 57:42. The host’s lead was still double-digit with two minutes on the clock, but Tadas Klimavicius missed a pair of free-throws, Zavackas made all 3 on the other end. Pocius went on to make 1-of-2 from the lone and Jomantas hit his third triple to make it competitive. Lietuvos Rytas was still behind, but only 62:67. The visitors got to 3 after a 2-pointer from Zavackas, but turnovers did not give Lietuvos Rytas any chances to complete a turn around.
Kurtinaitis did not look upset after the game, saying a three-point deficit to overcome at home in Vilnius and have home-court advantage in the playoffs is realistic. On the other hand, Zalgiris’ coach Gintaras Krapikas did not make any fuss about the wasted advantage, believing his team can win the game in Vilnius as well.
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