Grigonis excited about EuroLeague opener against Baskonia 6

Zalgiris is set for tip-off in their 2019-2020 EuroLeague campaign this Friday with a home game against Baskonia Vitoria.

As the tournament extends to 18 teams, Europe’s premier basketball tournament is bound to bring excitement and thrills wherever it goes. Marius Grigonis took time out and shared his thoughts about the upcoming battle and the preparations for the upcoming EuroLeague season.

“We’ll see some very good teams in Kaunas. Can’t wait for the fans! I already saw that tickets are being wiped out left and right and we’ll try to defend the honor of our home walls.”

Baskonia lost several prominent names from their front court, including Vincent Poirier, who left for the Boston Celtics and Johannes Voigtmann, who joined CSKA Moscow. The Spanish side called on Michael Eric and Youssoupha Fall, who spent last season in Darussafaka and SIG, respectively, to replace them.

Baskonia also lost Darrun Hillard to CSKA, but reinforced their backcourt with talented American guards Pierria Henry and Nick Stauskas. Nevertheless, neither Stauskas, nor Jayson Granger, who suffered a gut-wrenching Achilles injury, will play in Kaunas.

Baskonia will also boast a strong quartet of Tornike Shengelia, Luca Vildoza, Patricio Garino and sharp-shooter Matt Janning.

“Vitoria added big man Youssoupha Fall. We need to use his lack of quickness. They retained their leader Tornike Shengelia and, of course, they’ve got plenty more faces we’ve already seen. We’ll know where to attack our opponents, they’ll know what to do against us. But we’re playing at home and we need to use that. Last year, we started our EuroLeague season slowly, and we need to learn from that.”

The Lithuanian champions have already had a warm-up in the Betsafe-LKL, as they’ve quietly disposed of Siauliai, Pieno Zvaigzdes and Nevezis in their first three outings. Speaking of the time remaining until tip-off, Grigonis noted that they could still use a bit of preparations for the ever-important EuroLeague games.

“We’ve still got a bit of time to prepare, but as it is, it always seems like we could have more. For those of us coming back from the National Team, it really wasn’t a lot of time with the team. Everything seems alright for now, but playing in the LKL is one thing. We’re going to really see where we stand after the EuroLeague game.”

The team was also hit by a virus before it’s game in Kedainiai. While it was a short-term inconvenience, Grigonis joked around saying that it did have an impact on the player’s weight.

“We all lost a couple kilos each. Something happened at one time, but we all felt better in the morning. We all decided that we were going to play against Nevezis and that was enough.”