Butautas debut marked with victory 0
Ramunas Butautas marked his debut at the helm of Zalgiris with a 88:54 victory against visiting Sakalai in a Lithuanian League (LKL) game played in Kaunas.
Martynas Pocius led Zalgiris with 17, Mantas Kalnietis added 13 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists, Travis Watson collected 12 points and 7 rebounds as Arturas Milaknis had 11.
Sakalai‘s Gintaras Leonavicius had a team-leading 13 points, Ovidijus Varanauskas netted 12, while Paulius Joneliunas and Laurynas Samenas had 11 and 10 respectively for the visitors from Vilnius.
Marcus Brown did not help the hosts, while Sakalai had only 8 players in their roster.
The visitors from the capital could only give Zalgiris a fight in the first ten minutes, after which the club from Kaunas had a 21:16 lead.
A 23:5 run in the second period saw the hosts leave their opponents behind, taking a crushing advantage at 50:28.
The view on the court did not change in the second half, as Zalgiris cruised to an easy victory, still remaining the only undefeated side in LKL with a 9-0 record.
“We tried to improve the quality of our game, to play more aggressively and attack quicker. Today that was what I wanted to see. At moments, it was all right, but we couldn’t control the flow of the game from the middle of the third quarter”, Butautas said.
According to the new coach, Zalgiris players are too much into the chaotic style and this will need to be changed.
“The players are young and inexperienced, they find it hard to control their emotions. That’s why we got into the run-and-gun game today. We’ll try to work on this. As well as using the experienced players, I’ll try to give the younger players a chance so they can learn and also get a part of the responsibility”, said the coach.
Zalgiris will not have much time to rest, as their next game against Suduva is already on January 2.
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