Zalgiris Kaunas returned to winning ways by downing Crvena Zvezda Belgrade 99-67 at home in the EuroLeague Round 21 on Friday. Zalgiris improved to 12-9 in the standings after recording its seventh home victory of this EuroLeague season. Meanwhile, Zvezda dropped to 11-10, collecting its sixth loss in the last eight games.
Azuolas Tubelis led the winners with 17 points. Sylvain Francisco had 15, Maodo Lo and Arnas Butkevicius each added 12 while Moses Wright and Deividas Sirvydis got 10 apiece for Zalgiris.
Chima Moneke led Zvezda with 18 points on 6-of-6 two-pointers, but none of his teammates joined him in double digits.
Tubelis was the first Zalgiris player to step up, hitting a corner three-pointer and adding a pair of free throws before a backdoor slam in a 13-3 opening run which made Zvezda call its first timeout.
When Tubelis cooled off, other players stepped up. lo came off the bench to provide instant offense, Wright had two blocks in quick succession on Ebuka Izundu, and Francisco was simply all over the place, finding good shots everywhere and creating for others.
Zalgiris led 47-28 at halftime, boosted its lead to 60-36 midway through the
