By Stefan Djordjevic / info@eurohoops.net
In a peculiar clash between Khimki Moscow and Zalgiris Kaunas, the latter logged an 84-70 road win for the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Round 2.
Marius Grigonis scored 21 (5-8 threes) for the victors followed by Arturas Milaknis with 14 points (4-6 threes). Each of them also hit a three late in the game to hold of Khimki’s comeback. Nigel Hayes helped with 15 and Augustine Rubit with 12 points.
On the other side, Jonas Jerebko and Devin Booker took a heavy load for Khimki, spending 36-plus minutes on the floor. Jerebko banked 23 points and 12 rebounds while Booker scored 14.
Due to testing positive for coronavirus, Zalgiris couldn’t count on Joffrey Lauvergene for this game, however, the situation has been far worse for Khimki recently.
The Russian team couldn’t count on Greg Monroe, Janis Timma, Evgeny Voronov, Maxim Barashkov and Jordan Mickey who tested positive while Errick McCollum is still in isolation following his arrival to the country. Additionally, Alexey Shved, Stefan Jovic, and Dairis Bertans are out due to injuries.
That left coach Rimas Kurtinaitis with eight players on the bench and that’s including the injured Bertans due to the rules demanding at least that many, meaning he was using only seven players in the rotation.
“First, I want to congratulate Zalgiris on this win. They were stronger tonight. For sure, I don’t want to find excuses but we have reasons [for this loss]. It’s difficult to play a EuroLeague game with six players; it doesn’t matter if the game is at home or away. It’s a big problem. But I think our guys did their maximum tonight. Now we are waiting for our injured players to come back as well as those who were sick with the coronavirus,” coach Kurtianitis said after the game.
– Coach what is your main focus for the second half?
– To play 5 guys pic.twitter.com/a2IG6M78Nq
— Eurohoops (@Eurohoopsnet) October 10, 2020
At least one positive thing came out of it for Khimki and it was that the young prospect in Vladislav Odinokov got a chance to debut in EuroLeague. The 20-year-old Russian forward/center, brought in from the youth squad this season, logged eight points on 3-4 from deep in 18 minutes.
Vladislav Odinokov hits a triple for his first EuroLeague points!#EuroLeagueisBack pic.twitter.com/Hqv5TeraKb
— Turkish Airlines EuroLeague (@EuroLeague) October 10, 2020
With the above-mentioned in mind, Khimki managed to put on a strong effort early and take a 28-20 lead midway through the second quarter but that was the breaking point. Zalgiris started hitting threes, drawing fouls, and taking over the offensive boards which all-together propelled them to a 21-4 run and a 41-32 advantage at halftime.
The halftime rest didn’t help Khimki either as the Lithuanians quickly increased the gap to 20 points (54-34) and the outcome, despite a valiant effort by the Russian team to bounce back down the line (70-63), was basically decided already.
Zalgiris coach Martin Schiller didn’t underestimate the opponent despite the short roster, on the contrary: “The game was, in a way, what we anticipated. The opponent was undermanned due to the virus and injuries, but still very talented. So, statistically and analytically, an eight-man rotation is the best rotation you can play. You can just not play it over a whole season. These games are not won in the first quarter. So it went how we anticipated it to go. We tried to invest a lot of energy in order to tire them out, because of their small rotation, and we were happy it worked out. And we were happy about the win”
Griogonis, on the other hand, just wanted to get it over with: “We all know about the situation. I don’t even want to talk about the game. I’m just happy and blessed that we played this game, and we need to just keep going. We had 12 players; they had six or seven. So it’s obvious [why we won].”