Lietuvos Rytas has never won LKL twice In a row and coach Rimas Kurtinaitis has a chance to become the first coach to ever do so. Kurtinaitis was happy that most of his players have already left injuries behind them, but has worries about the form of players, who have just started to train.
“We are still preparing. Due to an easier semifinal, we had a bit longer to get ready for the final. We have 11 players, only Justas Sinica isn’t fit, others will be able to play and that will give me more options in our strategy,” said Kurtinaitis.
As the coach of Lietuvos Rytas put it, Arturas Jomantas still has some minor problems, but after training for four days now he might even make the starting five in the first game, which will be played already on Tuesday.
“I think that everything, including the home court advantage, is important in the games between Zalgiris and Lietuvos Rytas. We lost the Baltic League final at home in Vilnius, but that all has a good explanation,” said Kurtinaitis, who had to play with 8 players during the BBL Final Four. “The situation has changed dramatically, Lietuvos Rytas is always ready to win at home. I can’t imagine a different result. We have fit players, the determination, the will and we’ll fight for the victory.”
Kurtinaitis spoke nicely of Zalgiris’ coach Darius Maskoliunas, but acknowledged that the main problem is Tadas Klimavicius: “If we are able to deal with him, we’ll have a great chance of winning. He gets a lot of boards and if he scores more than fifteen points – we have serious problems. I think Klimavicius is Zalgiris’ cornerstone, of course, Travis Watson and Marcus Brown are very good players, who’ll find ways to score. We have to stop Zalgiris’ role players to give ourselves a better chance.”
“Psychology will play a big role. Last year we won the first game in Kaunas and took a huge step towards winning the title. The first game will be very, very important,” Lietuvos Rytas coach said.
After being asked to name three reasons why Lietuvos Rytas deserves to win the trophy, Kurtinaitis was very clear: “The first is because I want to win. The second – the owners want to win and the third is that the team wants to win as well. We have to defend our title. But the biggest reason of all is the chance to win a spot in Euroleague.”
