Olimpia left Munich at a late morning hour to fly to Kaunas where the team had practice tonight. There is no time for regretting what happened in the second half in Munich, when the team allowed 50 points, 31 in the third quarter alone, the period that proved to be decisive. There is no time because the Kaunas game is an all-important one for the future in this current EuroLeague. Zalgiris, coming off a convincing win over Alba Berlin, intends to tie Olimpia up in the standings and take advantage of having a 2-0 season record. However, they don’t have a big margin for errors since, after this game, Zalgiris will have just two home games over the last eight rounds. Olimpia, for example, will play at home four times over the last eight games. The standings situation is slowly taking form, and probably six teams are still contenders for one of the last four play-in spots available in a very confused situation, where going up and down doesn’t take much more than a couple of games. The Kaunas game is the last one before the national cups and Fiba window break. After it, Olimpia will hopefully recover some of its assets, namely Fabien Causeur and Nikola Mirotic, in order to prepare for a stretch run. Zalgiris is 8-6 at home, but after a terrific start to the season, that included the win in Milan, had a letdown and lost seven games over a eight-game span before defeating Alba Berlin yesterday. It is a team that plays with energy, especially when it can feed off the fans’ support, can be very aggressive defensively using its deep rotation and moving the players up and down to be more physical or faster, based on situations and matchups. On top of it, Zalgiris has the offensive talent of Lonnie Walker, who has 322 NBA games in his resumé, averaging 9.8 points per game and he is only 26; and Sylvain Francisco, a Frenchman who was raised in the United States and was a National team member at the 2023 World Cup.

Zalgiris Kaunas-Olimpia Milan will take place on Thursday, February 6, at 19:00 Italian time.

REFEREES – Juan Carlos Garcia (Spain), Emilio Perez (Spain), Anne Panther (Germany)

COACH ETTORE MESSINA– “Zalgiris is a team capable to express tremendous physicality, with guards who can produce a lot offensively and big men who set screens and take position inside with a lot of energy. Attacking well their defensive pressure and try to win the rebounding battle will be the first order of things to focus on.”

ZALGIRIS KAUNAS OUTLOOK – Sylvain Francisco and Lonnie Walker, a former NBA sharpshooter, are two explosive guards that Zalgiris is counting on as scorers. Francisco is averaging 14.0 points and 4.2 assists per game; the former NBA player Walker is adding 13.5 points per game. Both of them are capable three-point shooters. Dovydas Giedraitis – who should be out due to an injury – is another option at the guard spot: he is averaging 6.9 points per game on 42.9 percent three-point shooting. The veteran Lekas Lekavicius, who’s been in and out of the rotation, can also see minutes at the point. Traditionally deep, Zalgiris on the perimeter can count on the big-sized Matt Mitchell (3.7 point and 2.6 rebounds per game), the Canadian Lithuanian slasher Ignas Brazdeikis (6.1 points per game) and the sharpshooting forward Deividas Sirvydis (8.4 points per game on 38.3 percent three-point shooting). Edgaras Ulanovas, an experienced Lithuanian combo forward, is averaging 6.5 points per game. A more classic power forward is the former North Carolina star, Brady Manek, who is producing 3.8 points per night on 39.6 percent three-point shooting. However, he didn’t play for an injury last night against Alba. Another combo forward is Arnas Butkevicius who is providing just 4.8 points per game but is a lethal three-point shooter (42.0 percent). Coach Trinchieri is normally platooning at the center spot sharing the minutes among Laurynas Birutis, Alan Smailagic and the veteran Bryant Dunston. Birutis is providing efficiency, shooting 62.0 percent on twos while averaging 4.5 points per game; Smailagic is adding 7.8 points on 71.2 percent two-point shooting; Dunston is scoring less (3.9 points) but he takes down 3.2 rebounds per game and 1.8 of them are grabbed are the opponent’s board.

ZALGIRIS CONNECTION – Zach LeDay spent one season in Kaunas, in 2019/20. At the end of the season, he moved right to Olimpia. He appeared in 28 games with 329 points scored. In 2021/22, Josh Nebo played for Zalgiris, with 245 points and 174 rebounds over 28 games played. Zalgiris head coach Andrea Trinchieri has spent time in Olimpia both in the youth academy and as a first-team assistant coach.