By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
In basketball, you can never say never and Zalgiris Kaunas proved it beyond any doubt.
After trailing by 27 points in the third period, the Lithuanians got the 85-82 in over Milan on the road, shocking the Italians and completing the second biggest comeback in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague history.
Dovydas Giedriatis with 21 points and Sylvain Francisco with 17 points and huge plays down the stretch were the top scorers of the winners, while Deividas Sirvydis with 11 points was the only other scorer in double digits.
“It’s hard to comment on a game like this because, for three quarters, we were very bad.”, admitted coach Andrea Trinchieri and explained: “We were down by 27 points, but we came back with an amazing final quarter — 16:37. All the energy we lacked earlier appeared in that quarter. We hit our shots, grabbed rebounds, and made blocks. We’re heading home after two away games, and from my country, Italy, we leave with two wins — it could have been worse”.
Nikola Mirotic scored 17 points for Milan, however, after blowing a huge lead and entering the last quarter with an 18-point advantage, nobody could save Milan from suicide.
The Lithuanians now have a 3-1 record in the standings, while Milan dropped to 1-3.
Creating distance early was not enough
Thanks to a great first half, Milan locked the game early. The Italians after 20 minutes of action were up by 18 (49-31) and just kept their distance until the end.
Zalgiris led for the last time in the 7th minute of the game (16-15), but Milan reacted with a 9-1 run to close the first period up by seven (24-17). The hosts dominated the second period building a 20-point advantage (44-24) and pushing the lead to 27 (62-35) in the third which ended with the score 66-48 for Milan.
On paper, the game was over and Milan probably believed that. On the contrary, Zalgiris was ready to fight until the end.
The guests reacted and trimmed the lead to three (79-76) with 1.44′ left, putting the game on the line after an admirable 28-13 partial score.
What happened next was the completion of an amazing comeback. With 16 seconds left, Zalgiris got an 85-82 lead after a 9-3 run in one and a half minutes. Armoni Brooks had the chance to tie the game with a three but missed and Zalgiris celebrated an amazing feat.
Photo credit: EuroLeague