All right, so BallinEurope has been considering the case of this season’s Zalgiris Kaunas — a team that went 17-2 in European competition in calendar year 2012 but has since shown a distinctly alarming propensity for losing close ones — all weekend to the ultimate result of 1,200 words or so coming to no concrete conclusions. So it’s your turn: What do you think the problem has been the Greens’ primary problem?
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Tags: Basketball poll, Euroleague, Euroleague 2012-13, VTB United League, Zalgiris Kaunas
Btw, I don’t think you are right about the 2-6 record. In VTB, we beat Triumph Lyubertsy twice, by a point / after overtime. Plus there is a win in Bamberg. And back in the EL regular season this clutch record was much better – 2 narrow wins against Milano and one in Vitoria vs only 1 loss in Croatia. I also wouldn’t count the Minsk game – that one didn’t really matter (only did for Neptunas, unfortunately…)
I think the issue is that we are unable to beat certain teams for ages, like Panathinaikos, Olympiacos, Madrid, Barcelona, CSKA Moscow, Maccabi, Montepaschi at least in the games that matter (unlike VTB regular season games, occasional EL regular season games or Gomelsky cup), while we have generally no trouble winning close games against slightly weaker teams (such as L. Rytas, Bamberg, Prokom, even Unicaja). I think this is clearly not random – perhaps partly psychological, but generally I think a better team can outperform when it mobilizes during the clutch time.