Kazys Maksvytis, the coach of Zalgiris, then commented on his position, briefly stating that he doesn’t think his “hot seat” is an issue for him. He continued:
“I don’t want to talk about it; I’ll leave it to the future. Poor play and team cooperation, worse than in both games last week. Today, we had many more problems. Situations repeat; we give the initiative to the leaders, and they, already tired, make bad decisions. However, I don’t think we lost today’s game in the fourth quarter; we lost it in the third quarter.”
Edmond Sumner?
“Edmond brought life to our offense, but in defense, he made mental mistakes. You know, the feeling is that you want to keep Edmond in the attack, and Dovydas Giedraitis in defense, but it doesn’t work as it should.”
Collapse in the third quarter
“First of all, we probably need to talk about defense. It’s not like you win against Maccabi just with defense; they are very talented. And they scored fewer points than they average. Both offense and defense collapsed, but their points hurt us the most. We took risks, doubled their players, the ball went to Nebo, we wanted him to be there. Then we had to rotate in defense, and we didn’t do that. I’ll say it again; today’s performance was poor in both offense and defense.”
Problem with Hayes?
“You know, I don’t want to speak ill of players at the press conference, but Kevarrius is going through a worse period this season, and you can see that. Laurynas is also playing better. If there were mistakes somewhere before, Kevarrius was our link. Even with him, our defensive rotation no longer works, which was a crucial factor last season. This curve is somewhat related to Kevarrius’ poor performance.”
Six consecutive defeats
“It’s tough, of course. When you lose, it’s normal to lose confidence in the plan and in each other. Wins strengthen that, and they follow defeats,” Kazys Maksvytis concluded on a positive note.