Žalgiris – Barcelona, EuroLeague 2020-12-04 match review

Kauno Žalgiris

Kauno Žalgiris enters this match after a home court loss against St. Petersburg's Zenit team, with a score of 75-83. Although Žalgiris managed to stay close and give a fight to the Russian team demonstrating excellent basketball, considering that it was Zenit's third game in a week, Žalgiris had every chance to achieve victory. It can be agreed that the coaching duel was clearly won by X. Pascual, and the efforts of Grigonis and Lauvergne were simply not enough to lead the team to victory.

Compared to the beginning of the season, Žalgiris has reduced the number of three-pointers taken. However, reducing the number of three-pointers gives little benefit, as Žalgiris also often loses the battle under the basket to their direct opponents, and J. Lauvergne is certainly not the player who, given the opportunity to play one-on-one in offense, could punish opponents in every attack. Žalgiris undoubtedly lacks a true small forward, and with Garino not recovering and no replacement found, the season is doomed to failure. Neither Vasturia, nor Milaknis, nor Grigonis look strong in this position, and N. Hayes, who was supposed to play in the small/power forward positions, has recently been playing only in the power forward position.

Having lost 5 games in a row and facing the Barcelona team in the next match, which will enter the game after a disappointing away loss, the predictions for Žalgiris are not favorable. However, it is to be hoped that the Barcelona team will repeat last week's praise, and Žalgiris, playing above their capabilities at home, will keep a close fight until the end of the match.

Barcelona

Barcelona will play their 11th match in the tournament against Žalgiris, and currently, Barcelona ranks first in the standings, with 8 wins and 2 losses. Šarūnas Jasikevičius' team had won 6 games in a row before last week's round, but disappointingly lost 68-80 away to the Lyon team. Watching Barcelona gives a mixed impression – it is a team that is undoubtedly among the favorites to win the Euroleague, if they want to. Sometimes watching this team's game, it seems that winning is not always important to the players, lacking desire and effort.

Of course, Šaras is working on developing the “winner's mentality” he often mentioned in previous seasons, but at least for now, the Barcelona team is still far from that. Nevertheless, it is an individually strong team that does not need the highest level of team play to win against potentially weaker teams in the regular season. Barca's loss to Asvel is also more of a minus than a plus for Žalgiris, as Barcelona will certainly not relax for the second game in a row.

Prediction

Barcelona will enter this match after an away loss to the Asvel team, while Žalgiris will try to break a 5-game losing streak. Looking at both the team compositions and the demonstrated play, there is no doubt that for Žalgiris to compete against Barcelona today, they will need to play an almost ideal match. Whether Žalgiris is capable of playing a perfect match and whether that would be enough to defeat Barcelona is a question we will find out the answer to next week. However, it is most likely that the Barcelona team will take a double-digit victory from Kaunas.