Zalgiris Kaunas took their first Euroleague victory at home against the Germans Brose Baskets Bamberg 81-70 (28-21, 18-22, 14-10, 21-17).
The first half started nervously for Zalgiris. The home side just couldn't find a cure for Brose Baskets attacks and at one point were trailing by seven, but then Aleksandr Trifunovic asked for a timeout and managed to get the Greens back in the game, ending the first quarter ahead 28-21.
In the second period, the visitors stayed close, but the Brose Baskets bench was quickly given a technical foul, although the hosts didn't use their chance to get away.
The first half of the game ended with two consecutive Zalgiris turnovers, despite that, an impressive three-pointer from Sonny Weems gave Zalgiris a 46-43 edge after the first twenty minutes.
Two teams struggled to score in the third quarter, when both of them stepped up on defense. The visitors scored only 10 points in 10 minutes, leaving themselves trailing 53-60.
In the decisive part of the match, the rivals improved their game and with six minutes to go, closed the gap to just two. This time Zalgiris made the right conclusions and in the end didn't let a win to slip away, celebrating their first victory in 2011-2012 Euroleague season.
Former Raptors' swingman Sonny Weems led the hosts with 22 points, Marko Popovic added 13, Milovan Rakovic 12, Ty Lawson and Mantas Kalnietis finished the game with 8.
For the visitors, Brose's big man Predrag Suput had his game high of 19 points, Marcus Slaughter scored 11, while Julius Jenkins added 10.
Aleksandr Trifunovic (Zalgiris Kaunas head coach): “First of all, talking about the game, of course the victory is important and we're glad about it. But what's more important and makes us happy, it's our fans. They stood of their seats before the game and sang the national anthem. That was a special moment, which helped us to win. So far I'm with the team for only seven days, so I need more time to make our play better. I believe this team can achieve really good results in this season.”
