Zalgiris vs. Montepaschi Siena

MATCH PREVIEW

A couple of classic Euroleague teams will take center stage in Kaunas, Lithuania, when Zalgiris welcomes Montepaschi Siena in Group B on Thursday. Zalgiris opened the 2008-09 Euroleague season with a 78-51 road loss against Panathinaikos. Meanwhile, Montepaschi Siena registered a 80-71 home win over Asseco Prokom. There is some good news for Zalgiris, as Paulius Jankunas is back in action and already played in the Lithuanian League this weekend. Jankunas is set to offer post skills and deep shooting range to a strong frontcourt that also features a trio of experienced centers in Loren Woods, Ratko Varda and veteran Eurelijus Zukauskas. Woods pulled down 16 boards against Panathinaikos last week to lead the Euroleague. Zukauskas and versatile forward Tomas Masiulis helped Zalgiris to win the Euroleague back in 1999.

Zalgiris has a lot of problems these days with sporting form of main players. It would be interesting to see how lithuanians will play under baskets without Varda but with P.Jankunas who recovered from his injury but has yet to find his form. At this moment of the season there are only few players who can score points for Zalgiris: Woods, Dean and Salenga. All others including Maciulis can't score points even in domestic league. I agree that Zalgiris motivation for this match will be high but unfortunately when you meet a top team like Montepaschi motivation is not enough usually to achieve needed result.

Montepaschi on other with full roster arrived to Kaunas and according to press is very concetrated in winning this match. This match is important for them because they need to win all 3 games against Prokom, Nancy and Zalgiris to fight for better seed in Top-16. Unfortunately in last few games Montepaschi is not showing confidence but against poor Zalgiris they should be a dominating team in all aspects of the game: offense, defense, rebounding, bench..

Zalgiris will probably start strong but sooner or later Montepaschi will do a killing run and Zalgiris will lose this game by 9-14 points.

Prediction: Zalgiris 71 - 84 Montepaschi

Pick: Better to skip a game.

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