The Valencia team is currently in 14th place with 4 wins and 8 losses after 12 rounds. Meanwhile, Kaunas Žalgiris, with 3 wins and 9 losses, occupies the penultimate, 17th place in the standings. The Valencia team showed solid play this month and managed to achieve 3 consecutive wins at one point, but then followed by two consecutive away losses. They lost 73-76 to Crvena Zvezda and 99-112 to Real Madrid.
Kaunas Žalgiris is very unpredictable this season, as shown by the numbers: they fought until the end against CSKA Moscow, one of the strongest teams in the tournament, while at home they lost to the tournament's underdogs Zenit and Crvena Zvezda. Interestingly, 3 of the last 5 losses of Kaunas Žalgiris were by 3 points or less (82-85 against CSKA, 59-61 against Crvena Zvezda, 85-86 against Panathinaikos).
Kaunas Žalgiris
Before tomorrow's game, Valencia's coach mentioned in an interview that Kaunas Žalgiris is one of the hardest teams to analyze and prepare a game plan for. The Žalgiris coaching staff finds new weapons before each game, so the players who take the most initiative and the game strategies differ in each match. Šarūnas Jasikevičius has repeatedly mentioned that the coaching staff's job is to create the best possible situations for shooters, but Žalgiris' problem this season is the complete failure to realize three-point shots, even though the opportunities for shots are ideal. Žalgiris is one of the worst three-point shooting teams in the league, hitting only 31% of their shots. Although players like Edgaras Ulanovas, Lukas Lekavičius, or Jock Landale are not the best snipers in the league, it is reasonable to expect at least average three-point shooting from these players in good positions, but all three combined hit only 26% of their shots.
Žalgiris Leaders:
Zach LeDay – averaging 12 points, 5 rebounds, and 1 assist, the center plays very inconsistently. Often we can see him dominating in one half of the game, while in the other half he resembles his own shadow. In any case, this American is one of the team's leaders in his first season with the Kaunas team, so more and more hopes are being placed on this player.
Marius Grigonis – 11.5 points, 2.6 rebounds, and 2 assists. This was the statistic of the nominal team leader before he was sidelined due to a foot injury. It is very painful that, despite not showing good play, injury problems arise, and one of the most important players of the team cannot play. Tomorrow we will not see Marius Grigonis on the court.
Thomas Walkup – 9 points, 4 rebounds, and 4.4 assists. The versatile guard is finding himself more and more, and in the game against CSKA, Walkup played his best game of the season. Although his play sometimes still does not look entirely confident, the further he goes, the more the American dares to take the initiative, and the game against CSKA showed that Walkup can do it.
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Valencia Basket
The Valencia team is a typical Spanish team that plays each positional attack until an ideal shot, but this often leads to desperate shots in the last seconds of the attack.
“They are a good offensive team, have many options, play differently from other teams because the centers try to pull the opponent away from the basket. Dubljević and Tobey do this perfectly, with a smaller opponent, Dubljević goes to play under the basket. The team really has many options, very free basketball, and we need to try to restrict it somewhat,” said Šarūnas Jasikevičius about the opponents.
Indeed, all of Valencia's big men can shoot from a distance, but at least up to this point, it has not been their most reliable weapon – Bojan Dubjlevič shoots three-pointers with an average accuracy of 28%, Mike Tobey 29%, and L. Labeyrie only 11%.
Valencia Team Leaders
Bojan Dubjlevič – 13.8 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 1.4 assists. Dubjlevič is a long-time member of the Valencia team and at the same time one of the most important parts of the system. Although three-point shots are not falling very well this season, Dubjlevič finds opportunities to collect his point average, as he attacks from the 2-point zone with better than 60% accuracy.
Jordan Loyd – 12.4 points, 1.8 rebounds, and 2.4 assists. This is the statistic of the guard who joined Valencia in the offseason, whose main task is to create opportunities for shots and realize them. Loyd brings some chaos to the team's game, but this often pays off because it is quite difficult to predict the actions of such players.
Quino Colom – 7 points, 1.5 rebounds, and 4 assists. One of the best-known players in Europe, Colom has been attacking poorly from the field this season, with an overall shooting percentage of only 35%. Unlike J. Loyd, Colom assists his teammates more and creates the game, so the statistics do not fully reflect his great value and importance to this team.
Prediction
Despite the fact that Žalgiris will be without Marius Grigonis and Rokas Jokubaitis in this match, the Kaunas team is considered the favorite to win. Indeed, although the past weeks in the EuroLeague have not gone as desired, Žalgiris looked solid last week, which is encouraging. Valencia has not won an away game this season, and Žalgiris showed in the match against CSKA that they are gradually recovering, and this home win could provide a serious boost to get back into the fight for a playoff spot.
Kaunas Žalgiris, -5.5 1.9 odds, betsafe
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