LTU – Lietuvos Rytas target Euroleague spot in LKL Finals

VILNIUS (LKL) - The stakes could not be any higher for Lietuvos Rytas heading into the LKL Finals against Zalgiris Kaunas.

The Lithuanian giants are defending their title, and they are also going after a spot in Europe's top club competition for next season.

Rimas Kurtinaitis, the Lietuvos Rytas coach, was asked why the championship finals were so important.

“The first is because I want to win," he said.

"The second – the owners want to win and the third is that the team wants to win as well.

"We have to defend our title.

"But the biggest reason of all is the chance to win a spot in Euroleague.”

A player that could be forcing his way into Lithuania's national team, Zalgiris power forward Tidas Klimavicius, poses a big threat to Lietuvos Rytas.

“If we are able to deal with him, we’ll have a great chance of winning," Kurtinaitis said.

"He gets a lot of boards and if he scores more than 15 points – we have serious problems.

"I think Klimavicius is Zalgiris’ cornerstone, of course, Travis Watson and Marcus Brown are very good players, who’ll find ways to score.

"We have to stop Zalgiris’ role players to give ourselves a better chance.”

Darius Maskoliunas, who guided his team to a Baltic League title win over Lietuvos Rytas recently, looked ahead to the championship showdown.

“Both us and Lietuvos Rytas have set our goals high," he said.

"The winner will be decided by many factors – the fighting spirit, luck ... "

The finals tip off on Tuesday in Vilnius.

FIBA