By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
Coming back from an early 10-point deficit, Neptunas took down Zalgiris, 70-68, to tie the Betsafe LKL Quarterfinals best-of-five series at 1-1 on Wednesday.
With the low-scoring contest knotted at 68-68, Deividas Gailius was fouled in a buzzer-beating three-point effort and in the winning sequence managed to sink a couple of free throws. The 34-year-old swingman scored his team’s last nine points and ended up with a total of 17 points for the Klaipeda outlet.
Zygimantas Janavicius, a product of the Zalgiris youth team, poured a season-high 21 points. The 33-year-old point guard connected three triples matching the team effort of the guests. The Kaunas side, coached by Kazys Maksvytis, finished with 3/18 shots from beyond the arc.
His side struggling to drop long-range shots, Lukas Lekavicius went to work in the midrange area and logged a team-high 17 points. French Joffrey Lauvergne recorded 11 of his 14 points in the first half. Tai Webster (leg) was sidelined.
Lietkabelis rolled to a 95-73 victory on the road and went up to 2-0 in its best-of-five series opposite Uniclub Casino-Juventus. Gediminas Orelik banked in a team-high 18 points for the team based in Panevezys.
Elsewhere, top-seeded Rytas against Dzukija and CBet versus Siauliai-7bet got tied at one win each on Tuesday. In the next round, the semifinals will be contested in a best-of-five game format, but a best-of-seven game format will take over for both the championship and third-place series. Zalgiris has captured every single title since the 2010-11 season.
Photo Credit: Basketball Champions League