The Lithuanian side produced a pair of decisive runs in each half to subdue the home team
Zalgiris storms through to demolish lackluster ASVEL
Game Report
3 Mins read
Regular Season
Round 23 of 38
Regular Season
LDLC ASVEL VilleurbanneASV
7796
Zalgiris KaunasZAL
Overview
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Zalgiris Kaunas breezed to a 77-96 road win at LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne and improved to 13-10 while the French side slipped to 6-17 after a fourth successive loss left the hosts languishing among the EuroLeague’s bottom teams.
ASVEL had won four of the previous five meetings between the two sides, but most recently lost this season’s reverse fixture in Kaunas 96-59 in October. Tuesday’s matchup in France was almost a carbon copy, with Zalgiris forging an insurmountable lead in the third quarter.
The visitors romped into a 2-17 lead and could do no wrong in the opening exchanges, whereas ASVEL looked all at sea at both ends of the court. The hosts then regained some of their composure and put together a 12-0 run which slashed the deficit to 41-45 at halftime, as Thomas Heurtel led the charge to counter Moses Wright’s dominance in the paint for Zalgiris.
Any hopes the home team might have had of staging a comeback vanished in thin air in the third quarter as Zalgiris went on a 2-18 streak to lead 55-75 ahead of the final 10 minutes, with Wright toying with his markers. Sylvain Francisco netted ruthlessly from mid-range and downtown, emerging as the winning team’s top scorer on 20 points to go with 6 rebounds and 4 assists.
It was the unstoppable Wright who claimed the player of the game accolade, however, racking up 18 points and 7 boards while fellow big man Azuolas Tubelis amassed 14 and 4. Wright acknowledged the fast and furious start by Zalgiris was crucial in forcing ASVEL on to the back foot for the rest of the contest.
“We played hard and physical, we got four steals early on and scored some easy transition baskets,” Wright said in his postgame comments. “We all came together in the locker room and talked about what we needed to do, then we executed. We’ll now try to put together a string of wins to get our momentum going.”
Francisco added: “We started really well but we’ve got to keep up the consistency. In the third quarter we took the game to them and we were aggressive, we punished them for their mistakes on offense. We’ve got to stay locked in because the upcoming game at Milan in less than 48 hours is going to be hard.”
It was a disappointing night for the home team and its head coach Pierric Poupet, who stopped short of blasting his men for lack of guile after last week’s valiant effort on home court against league leader Hapoel IBI Tel Aviv, when ASVEL ran out of steam in the home stretch.
“It’s probably the first time this season that I didn’t recognize my team,” Poupet said. “I don’t think we came ready to play a game of EuroLeague intensity, so of course you get smacked. Somehow we succeeded not to lose by 40 points but the difference was huge today.”
Heurtel finished as the game’s top scorer on 21 points but to little avail as Zalgiris won the battle of the boards 34-27 while ASVEL committed 14 turnovers and managed only as many assists, playing second fiddle to the visitors who took better care of the ball (18 assists, 12 turnovers).
