"Lietuvos rytas" lose to "Zalgiris"
Lietuvos Rytas failed to take advantage of their home court and went down to Zalgiris in their first meeting of the LKL season.
Although Rytas got off to a slow start and trailed the visitors 7-14 early in the first quarter, they recovered to reduce the deficit to a single point by quarter's end 15-16.
With both teams looking rusty the second quarter started much the same and scoring looked especially hard in a game dominated by defence.
Rytas actually edged ahead 23-22 before Zalgiris clawed their way back to a 34-39 lead at the half.
The second half started with a bit more fluency and when Jomantas hit a three pointer to even the count at 45-45 the home crowd roared into life and helped Rytas to a 55-53 advantage at the final break. A Lukauskis two pointer had Rytas up four at 57-53, and that was the margin again after Robert Carter dropped a double at 59-55, but Pangos was starting to hit important shots to keep Zalgiris close.
With three minutes remaining another Pangos two pointer tied the scores at 61. Zalgiris pulled away and were up 61-66 with just over a minute remaining and the home crowd was looking pessimistic, but a steal by Kramer and a deuce a bit later had Rytas within one again.
Rytas failed to capitalise allowing Zalgiris to control the final minutes by hitting three out of four foul shots and taking a 67-70 victory. Rytas had their chances and missed quite a few three pointers early in the offence in the dying minutes only to see Zalgiris go down the other end of the court and see Pangos take full advantage of his chances.
Overall Kurtinaitis was not too disheartened by the loss and praised his team for their effort. He was more critical of the officials and made mention in the press conference of the fact that Zalgiris had 29 free throws to Rytas' 13.
So plenty of drama and an exciting encounter of two teams still looking to hit their straps early in the season. For Rytas Kramer and Robert Carter were equal top scorers with 12 and Rokas added 10. Baron and Magden were below their best with 5 each and Mavrokefalidis continued his improvement with 9. Pangos was the pain point for Rytas finishing with 19.