By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Bitci Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz got the job done against bottom-seeded Zalgiris Kaunas with a 96-79 victory at home in their final game for the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season. Neven Spahija’s squad put up a tremendous run to win five of its last six games though they couldn’t clinch a playoffs berth, ending the 2021-22 campaign with a 12-16 overall record.
There was no shortage of scorers in Baskonia’s last homecourt EuroLeague display for the year. Steven Enoch led six more scorers in double-figures with a team-high of 18 points. Rokas Giedraitis scored 17 points along with 4 rebounds, Matthew Costello followed with 15 points, Simone Fontecchio and Tadas Sedekerskis both added 11 points. Adding up to Baskonia’s effort, Alec Peters and Vanja Marinkovic finished the game with 10 points.
The home team took total control of the game from the start and extended its lead to 28 points at the mid-point of the fourth quarter to give its fans a feast ahead of the upcoming Liga Endesa playoffs.
Coach Spahija highlighted the importance of having a full healthy roster again and how much this victory means for Baskonia as a boost for their domestic league obligations for the remainder of the season. “The most important for us was to win the game. We are playing good basketball”, he said. “Since the break, we had two weeks off to prepare, players came back healthy. We had a short rotation, but I said many times, when we have everyone together we can play with anyone, and I think we proved it many times this season”.
Lukas Lekavicius scored 20 points for Zalgiris to lead all scorers of the game, Karolis Lukosiunas tapped 12 points and Joffrey Lauvergne added 10.
Baskonia ends the regular season at a 12-16 record, while Zalgiris (7-20) has yet a Round 21 makeup game to play against Crvena Zvezda on Sunday to end a fruitless season in the EuroLeague.
Photo credit: EuroLeague