Zalgiris wins BBL championship! 0
Zalgiris players were triumphant on Satruday in Vilnius. The club from Kaunas came out victorious in the Baltic Basketball League (BBL) final defeating Lietuvos Rytas 73:66 (14:18, 18:28, 25:12, 16:8) in what was a game of two halves.
Lietuvos Rytas started the game better than the side from Kaunas. Martynas Gecevicius and Vidas Ginevicius ignited a 17:4 run that saw the defending champions spurt ahead by 13 points – 31:18.
Teams changed seats after halftime as Zalgiris mounted a huge 17:2 comeback to swing the game their way. The scoreboard showed 50:49.
A see-saw battle began. The winner was decided in the last seconds of the game as Tadas Klimavicius scored 7 points in a row and helped Kaunas to run away with a 71:63 lead, but Kenan Bajramovic fired in a guarded three-pointer off the backboard and gave Lietuvos Rytas at least a glimmer of hope.
However, Lietuvos Rytas committed a turnover on their possession and couldn’t prevent Zalgiris from getting an offensive board on the next play to see the triumphing visitors in Siemens Arena.
Marcus Brown had a game-high 22 points whilst Tadas Klimavicius added 17 plus 8 boards. Dainius Salenga scored 11, Martynas Pocius collected 9 as Travis Watson ended with 8 points and 8 rebounds.
Lietuvos Rytas was led by Martynas Gecevicius with 20, Kenan Bajramovic scored 14 as Steponas Babrauskas got 13 points and 8 rebounds.
Darius Maskoliunas:“I’m very happy for the players, for the character they showed today. I’m happy that they didn’t give up after two terrible quarters. We had to rely on our fighting spirit to bring us back into the game and we succeeded only because of our will.
I want to say a nice word to our opponents. They had two very hard games without key players. It was clear that it was hard for them, their main players were dead tired. We have to overthink some things and prepare for the future. One thing that you can’t take away from Lietuvos Rytas is their huge effort.”
Tadas Klimavicius:“I haven’t tasted champagne yet. You all saw how difficult was the victory. The first two quarters were just the same as yesterday. It was key that we found some energy in ourselves and took the much-needed win.”
Rimas Kurtinaitis: “I want to congratulate Zalgiris with a victory in a beautiful and honourable game for the BBL title. They were more accurate and faster. But I also want to thank my players for the fight they gave. We couldn’t win today due to the lack of energy. The LKL finals await, we will be preparing for them next.”
Martynas Gecevicius:“We started the game fairly well, our defense was good in the first two quarters. The second half everything turned around, we started to miss our shots, made a lot of stupid turnovers and lost in result. A final is a final, I gave all that I had in my tank.”
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