Two hot-shooting teams face off in Kaunas, Messina: A better defensive game is required

Not even the time to recover from the fatigue of Wednesday’s battle against Fenerbahce that Olimpia is already on the road, on its way to Kaunas where on Friday 5 March at 19:00 Italian time will face Zalgiris in yet another huge clash for access to the EuroLeague playoffs. Zalgiris, in the standings, is today the first of the teams that would be eliminated in the traffic jam that is being generated. It will actually be a double trip because after the game in Lithuania, Olimpia will fly directly to Trento for the next Italian League game (on Sunday at 17:00). The team will face Zalgiris with a depleted roster, which is missing point guard Malcolm Delaney and power forward Zach LeDay, although against Fenerbahce, Jeff Brooks returned after almost two months out. This is the first of a streak of five road games over the next six. In between, Olimpia will square off against first-place Barcelona in Milan, before wrapping up the regular season with Efes. The schedule is obviously tough. In Kaunas, the two best three-point shooting team will face off. Olimpia is leading the league shooting 42.48 percent, but Zalgiris is second, shooting 41.9 percent. Zalgiris too has to deal with an absence, the one of the  shooter Arturas Milaknis, one of the best specialists in history with 404 threes made and 42.6 percent accuracy in his career. Zalgiris is also the best team in free-throw shooting, at 85.5 percent, with Marius Grigonis, the EuroLeague MVP in November who has 75-for- 78 for the season.

COACH ETTORE MESSINA – "We play against an athletic and very well-coached team in Kaunas. How to face their aggressiveness, full-court pressure and energy will be the major task for us. Obviously, in order to have the chance to win this game we will have to play a higher-level defensive game compared to the last one."

KEVIN PUNTER – "In Kaunas, we’ll face a very solid EuroLeague team, Zalgiris looks in good shape, so we’ll need to stay focuses, play with energy for 40 minutes, execute well on offense and defense. We don’t have Malcolm Delaney, so everybody will have to step up a little."

THE REFEREES – Christos Christodoulou (Greece), Milan Nedovic (Serbia), Marcin Kowalski (Poland).

NOTES – Gigi Datome is second behind Kyle Kuric (Barcelona) in the three-point shooting at 56.2 percent. Zach LeDay is fifth at 50.0 percent. Shavon Shields is seventh in three-point shooting with 47.1 percent, although his 15-game run with at least one three made has been just broken. Vlado Micov is within six of 700 rebounds for his career.

DATOME @ 2000 – Gigi Datome has become the 40th player in history to have scored at least 2,000 points in the EuroLeague. Datome needed 228 appearances on the court to reach 2,000 points of which 1,538 were scored for Fenerbahce over five seasons and 159 appearances. He also scored 71 points in Siena and 205 in Rome. In Milan at this time, he has 24 appearances and 197 points scored. Datome now is the second Italian ever in this list, behind Gianluca Basile, who has 2,163 points over 233 appearances on the court.

ZALGIRIS KAUNAS – Two players have always started for Zalgiris, the American point-guard Thomas Walkup (7.3 points and 4.5 assists per game) and the shooter Marius Grigonis (14.3 points per game, 3.1 assists, 47.2 percent from three-point range, 96.2 percent from the line). The third starter is Nigel Hayes (9.1 points, 4.0 rebounds, 45.0 percent from three) and the fourth is the French center Joffrey Lauvergne (11.2 points per game, 5.7 rebounds, 60.2 percent from two). Because of Arturas Milaknis injury, the fifth man could be the American Steve Vasturia (42.1 percent from three). The rotation includes point guard Lukas Lekavicius (7.4 points per game, 46.7 percent from three), Rokas Jokubaitis, the power forward Augustine Rubit (8.2 points and 4.0 rebounds per game), the EuroLeague all-time record holder for games player Paulius Jakunas and center Martin Geben.

HISTORY LESSON – The two teams have met 18 times with Zalgiris leading the all-time series 10-8, 8-5 in the EuroLeague era. During the 2016/17 season there has been the last Olimpia win in Kaunas, 88-84 with 17 points from Andrea Cinciarini and 13 from Awudu Abass. Last year, Olimpia won 85-81 with 17 points and six assists from Sergio Rodriguez and 14 points from Jeff Brooks in the Milan game, losing instead to Kaunas after an overtime, 105-98. Earlier in the season, Olimpia won 98-92 with 22 points from Zach LeDay, 20 from Kevin Punter and 17 from Shavon Shields.

THE ZALGIRIS CONNECTION – Zach LeDay last year won the Lithuanian title playing for Zalgiris. In all, he played 28 EuroLeague games and 24 in the Lithuanian league. It was LeDay who scored 19 points in Zalgiris’ win over OIimpia in the Kaunas game.

THE SITUATION – In the head-to-head matchups already defined, Olimpia is 2-0 Vs Real Madrid; 2-0 Vs Bayern Munich; 1-1 (-3) Vs Zenit St. Petersburg; 1-1 (=) Vs Fenerbahce; 1-1 (=) Vs Valencia.