NAVI player Justinas "jL" Lekavicius commented on his team's victory over Team Spirit in the quarter-finals of the 20th season of ESL Pro League. In an interview with HLTV.org, the Lithuanian esports athlete also shared his thoughts on the opponent's playstyle and made a jab at Miroslav "zont1x" Plakhoti.
"Thank you. The feeling is just incredible; finally beating Team Spirit without dropping a single map is amazing. I think they made a slight mistake picking Dust2, as it’s not our weak map. They certainly caught us off guard, but preparing for a map doesn’t take much time for our team, and we knew they would often go for B, which they did. We simply outplayed them there. Yes, it was a solid map performance from our side.
There was definitely a bit of extra motivation. I feel like this team has beaten us about 25 times, including in the BO5 finals, so a lot of emotions have built up. Also, I read an interview where zont1x said we were a comfortable opponent for them. I want to ask him again: still comfortable? Of course, he’ll say, ‘Yes, we played under pressure’ or ‘It was just an off day,’ but believe me, this result will repeat every time we play against Team Spirit.
They don’t play some incredible or overly complex CS, not at all. They play very simply. A fake on A and a switch to B, control, and then transition to another site – it’s all very straightforward; you just need to understand that and have ready countermeasures. They shoot well, and if you don’t have crossfire or a well-thought-out plan to counter their actions, you’ll lose that round. So, we tried to do that, and we executed it quite well."