Dissolved Virtus and Zalgiris remained high

With Sylvain Francisco as the leader, Zalgiris swept Virtus 86-65 in the “Zalgirio Arena” for the seventh matchday of the Euroleague and with a 5-2 record “appears” temporarily in second place in the standings, waiting for the rest of the results and leaving the Italians at 4-3, but in the privileged six.

Jonas Maciulis’ men consistently maintained a double-digit lead in the first half, Dusko Ivanovic’s men cut it to -4 in the second half, but several runs in the fourth period restored order for the Lithuanians.

The French international guard scored 23 points, supported by Wright with 14, Sleva with 13 and Sirvidis with 11 points. For the Italians, Morgan stood out with 19 and Smilagic with 12 points.

The match

With the first “violins” of Ulanovas and Sirvidis, Zalgiris reached an amazing 17-2 in the first five minutes of the match with very good defense and amazing percentages in two-pointers and shots. Rubstavicius’ 3-pointer answered the Italians’ 4-0 run for 20-6 and we got to 25-9 before 25-11 in the first period.

Zalgiris maintained +12 to +14 at the beginning of the match, continuing to have good percentages in two-pointers and supremacy in rebounds and especially offensive ones. Back-to-back 3-pointers by Taylor dropped Virtus to -7, but a 4-0 run by Zalgiris made it +11. Smailagić’s three-pointer reduced the score to -7, with the Italians’ good defense having thrown the Lithuanians’ percentages into the racket, and Wright made it 42-33 at the end of the half.

Zalgiris had 12/20 two-pointers, 4/8 three-pointers, 6/9 shots and 18 rebounds. Virtus had respectively 9/17 two-pointers, 3/11 three-pointers, 6/7 shots and 13 rebounds.

Sirvidis’ 3-pointer at the start of the third period made it +12 for Zalgiris, and Maciulis’ players kept it +10 to +12 in that period. Smilagic with a personal 5-0 run reduced it to -7 for the Bolognese, but most of the attacking options of the home team brought +10 again. A 6-0 run by Virtus cut it to 56-50 for 58-50 at the end of the quarter.

With a personal 4-0 run by Morgan, Virtus was down 58-54 at the start of the fourth period, but most of Zalgiris’ solutions brought a 5-0 run for +9. A new 6-0 streak with the right choices in the Italian racket gave +13 for the Lithuanians, who had the clear superiority in rebounds and found second attacks during this period. Francisco’s three-pointer made it 72-58 and Zalgiris’ 4-0 run +15 with 2’29” left. Tubelis made it 78-61 and Zalgiris’ 8-0 run in the final minute made the final 86-65.

The quarters: 25-11, 42-33, 58-50, 86-65

The statistics