# Lithuanian League All Star Day



## Zalgirinis (Feb 18, 2003)

LKL All-Star was staged yesterday in Vilnius Siemens arena. As usually it had 3pt contest, this time game "Lithuanians-Foreigners" (in the past there were East-West, Young-Old) and a dunking contest.

Triple competition was one of the best I've ever seen. The main favorite and the winner of last year contest Ainars Bagatskis from Zalgiris had to start it first because of alphabetical order, but he wasnt lucky and collected only 13 points. Salvis from Neptunas with 23 points and Redeckas from Sakalai with 19 made it to the semifinal in which 4 shooters from 10 could get. Three other players collected 16 points, but only 2 of them could go further. So there were small shootout of 2 positions (10 shots-12 points). Cepulis from Siauliai (2nd favorite after Bagatskis) made 7. Papucka made 6. Slezas of Rytas in front of his crowd had 5 but with last 2point shot made 7 and got into semifinal. Also when collecting his first 16 he had to hit his last 2 shots, but he made it.

So Cepulis starts semifinal and he shoots very great collecting 23 points. Theres big pressure on other 3 shooters, but Slezas comes next and collects 24 with missing last 2 shots, which could make 27 points - the absolute record. Redeckas shoots next and he starts perfectly - he has 11 points after 2 shooting positions, but somehow he falls apart and finished only with 22. Salvis the finalist of last year has to collect at least 23, but he goes even further. After 4 shooting positions he has 22 points out of 24!!! But he makes only 2 shots in the last one, has 24 points and makes it to the final togehter with Slezas. Amazing semifinal :yes: 

In final Slezas shoots first and makes 18. Salvis has easy job then, collects 20 and misses few last shots. 20 years old of Neptunas Klaipeda gets the title and 4000 Litas (1160 euros) prize.

Next comes game Liths-Foreigns. Quarters are only of 8 minutes (because Lith Eurovision final had to begin right after All Star on TV). It starts with nice alley-oop from Ginevicius to Javtokas, but both teams are pathetic from 3pt. I havent seen boxscore anythere yet, but I think they took more 3s than 2s and % was lower than 30% for both teams.

Also teams seemed to care about the result too much. There were really nice dunks, but other than that it wasnt exciting. Dainius Salenga tried to make Carter like pass off the glass dunk and almost succeeded. He was only 1 inch away from making it smoothly. He still made it, but not that easy. Anyway Salenga and Javtokas made few crazy dunks to please the crowd.

Foreigners, who had lost all 4 earlier Liths-Foreign games, won 86:74 and MVP of course was Tanoka Beard, who wants to collect every title possible. He had 20 points, 17 rebounds and also !!! fouled out !!!

Dunk contest was one of the worst ever. Maybe it seemed better being in arena, because TV showed it from the ugliest angles (almost everytime from beneath the rim). Also all best dunkers didnt take part because they were afraid of injuring themselves or were injured. So Antonio Grant and Aleksandr Savenkov both from Neptunas made it to the final, in which Grant won it with regular dunks, which any US highschooler could make.

So on conclusion very great triple contest, and mediocre game with mediocre dunking contest. Anyway All Star day isnt smth big to care about here, so no big disappointments about it.

P.S. Happy Birthday CFFI !!! :biggrin: Long live You and Sabonis! :rock: 

P.P.S. I know I promised to make this thread earlier, but today I felt down on iced stairs and injured my right elbow, so had to type it almost with one hand...


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## Crazy Fan From Idaho (Dec 31, 2002)

Great report, Zalgirinis! Too bad it was an off-day for our Latvian sniper. Wish Sabonis had been there to play, also, but.......oh, well..... 

Thank you for the birthday greeting. It is a beautifully sunny day in Idaho today. Not warm enough for short-sleeves.....I can only remember one birthday ever that was that warm......but a beautiful false spring day. Nice day for a birthday! 

Bummer about your elbow. Hope you didn't break anything! Hopefully it will heal quickly. No ice or snow in Idaho this winter, for some odd reason. You should live here, instead! 

Thanks again for the recap. :yes:


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## ballstorm (Nov 30, 2003)

Considering what amazing shooters the liths are , an all-star shootout contest must be something really cool to see . I wish I could see that !

Happy Birthday CFFI !


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## joSeaN (Nov 17, 2004)

Felicidades CFFI


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## Crazy Fan From Idaho (Dec 31, 2002)

Thanks, Ballstorm and Josean! 

IBN should be back up tomorrow. See you all there!


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## Zalgirinis (Feb 18, 2003)

http://rapidshare.de/files/731343/LKL_ALLSTAR_DUNKS.avi.html

Here's the link with slams from dunk contest. Size is 12 MB. The first dunk is the most hilarious for such competition


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