Zalgiris upsets Fenerbahce in overtime after late drama 0
Zalgiris bounced back from three straight defeats in the Euroleague Top 16 stage with an 85-84 (11-15, 20-15, 18-19, 20-20, 16-15) overtime victory against Fenerbahce Ulker at home in Kaunas on the Lithuanian Independence Day.
You can check out the moments from the game in our photo gallery. Martynas Pocius and Tomas Delininkaitis led the Kaunas side with 13 points each, as Trent Plaisted scored 12 points without missing a shot in his Euroleague debut. DeJuan Collins and Tadas Klimavicius both scored 9 points while Mantas Kalnietis finished with 7 points and 4 assists.
“We played after a long weekend and were a little tired, but the players gave their best and we managed to achieve a victory. We defeated one of the best Euroleague teams because of our defense, but we still need to keep working on it,” Ilias Zouros, the Greek coach of Zalgiris, said.
Fenerbahce Ulker’s offense relied mostly on the duo of the game’s top-scorer Omer Onan, who finished with 23 points and Emir Preldzic, who had an astonishing all-around performance with 19 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists for the Turkish side.
“I’m proud of my team. Even though I’m in basketball for over twenty years, I still don’t understand this sport. After I get back home, I’ll start learning once again. I can’t understand how a team can shoot 23 more free throws, than the other one, but only win the game by a single point. Maybe there were more games like this, but I don’t recall any. I have never seen such good referees,” Fenerbahce Ulker’s coach Neven Spahija said in irony, not hiding his opinion about the referees.
The two Lithuanians, playing for Fenerbahce Ulker didn’t make much of an impact – Darjus Lavrinovic scored 8 points, but managed to foul out in just over 13 minutes after receiving a technical foul, while Sarunas Jasikevicius had a tough time dealing with double-teams and scored only two points despite receiving the most playing time in his team on the way to four turnovers.
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