By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Lukas Lekavicius turned hero-mode for Zalgiris Kaunas and led the team to a close 72-68 home win against Bitci Baskonia in Euroleague.
Zalgiris had an upper hand throughout the game and was up by 11 points (45-34) but Baskonia pushed the game to a close finish. It was a tie (63-63) around the two-minute mark when Lekavicius stepped up for the hosts, scoring the next eight points (71-65) and guiding his teammates to victory.
Lekavicius finished the game with 13 points on 4-6 from the field while also dishing out nine assists. Josh Nebo played a big role as well with ten points, as did Mantas Kalnietis with the same number of points including a crucial three-pointer in the fourth quarter.
“They came back because of their aggression. I just took some open shots and made them and we won the game. I’m more a scorer than a passer but if I see an open man I always pass and they made some shots, so I’m happy about that. Every game is important for us, especially at home. We must win most of the games at home because we have great fans and we did it today,” Lekavicius said.
For Baskonia, Steven Enoch logged a double-double with 13 points and ten rebounds while Simone Fontecchio added 12 and Jayson Granger 11 points.
With this win in Round 13, Zalgiris improved to a 3-10 record, getting closer to Baskonia which stands at 4-9.
Coach Jure Zdovc expected a tough fight but also had a feeling his players could’ve wrapped up things earlier. A win is a win in the end, however, and a deserved one at that.
“Congratulations to my players for the win. I said this would be a fight for every possession. Maybe we could have broken away in the game two or three times earlier but we didn’t. They are a good team. Also in the end we were a little bit lucky, but generally we played good defense. We forced them to make a lot of extra passes. The first half, the only problem was offensive rebounds – they had 10 offensive rebounds and scored 13 points off those. In the second half, we controlled the rebounds. And in the end, I think we deserved the win.”