The game was reasonably close for over a quarter, but mostly due to the individual performance by Povilas Butkevicius, who scored ten points in a row for Rudupis to even give them the lead at 30-25. However, Lietuvos Rytas had a young big man of their own, who caused a fair amount of trouble to the opposition.
“Defense was the key to the win. That’s what we have been working on for the last couple of weeks. We want to keep the intensity on defense at this level at all times. We still struggle in many places from time on time, but we want to have a defense-first mentality,” said Lietuvos Rytas’ head coach Darius Maskoliunas.
Under the watchful eye of Shareef Abdur-Rahim, the Sacrament Kings’ assistant General Manager, the top Lithuanian prospect Jonas Valanciunas scored 21 points and grabbed 7 rebounds in the first half of the game. The 18-year-old went on to collect 23 points and 8 rebounds on the night after sitting out most of the second half of the blowout.
Brad Newley was active on the court and collected 13 points, Arturas Jomantas had 12 while Kenan Bajramovic and Steponas Babrauskas also reached double-digits with 10 points each.
Povilas Butkevicius, who is on-loan from Zalgiris, had a team-high 17 points for Rudupis, former Lietuvos Rytas player Justas Sinica scored 11 for the hosts while Gediminas Orelik and Adas Juskevicius collected 9 and 8 points respectively.
