CSKA break Zenit tradition, Loko don’t lose with Pashutin, Parma set records. Week in review

CSKA break Zenit tradition, Loko don’t lose with Pashutin, Parma set records. Week in review

Main events of 16th regular season week!

CSKA win in St. Petersburg in regular season for the first time since 2016

For last three seasons Zenit pleased its fans with home victories over CSKA in regular season. Fact: last time when Red-blues won in St. Petersburg not in play-off their rookie Howard Sant-Roos was still playing for Nymburk.

Zenit and CSKA played third game that week and hard schedule played its role: the game wasn’t high-scoring, especially for the hosts. If CSKA managed to pace up and get close to their average score then Zenit’s 63 points is season-low result for them.

Joan Plaza spoke about the fatigue after the game, and pointed out that his team is learning to handle with this schedule – “To be honest, three games in 6 days is really tough for us. Only a few players have experienced such conditions”.

However, CSKA broke unlucky tradition, won in Petersburg and saved second place in standings.

PARMA set records

“PARMA’s game today wasn’t a surprise for me, it was my team’s reaction on game adjusments” – Zoran Lukic was shocked with the loss in Perm as well as most Nizhny fans.

106:71 – PARMA took its biggest win in 4 seasons in VTB league. In first half Perm scored franchise-high 60 points, and only Aleksandr Chadov’s shot in the end cut the difference a little:

After half break PARMA saved its spirit while Nizhny couldn’t maintain it. Third quarter was decisive: the hosts won it 27-9 and made it to the win.

By the way, 106 points is one more PARMA’s record in VTB league. Before their maximum score in one game was 104 points vs Kalev (104:84) in 2017/18 season.

PARMA’s guard Maksim Grygoriev, former Nizhny Novgorod player participated in his team’s party:

Enisey was close to their 14-point comeback in Khimki

Despite the fact that Khimki have only one loss this season and were pure favourites of the game, Enisey had nice chance to win: that week Khimki had 2 tough games in Euroleague while Krasnoyarsk had enough time to prepare. Moreover, Enisey had won in Khimki last season. The guests started powerfully but in the second quarter allowed Yellow-blues to score 36 points and finished the half with 14-point differential.

But still, Enisey didn’t give up and almost came back to the end of the game. Denis Zakharov with -3 on the scoreboard in last possession could turn the game to overtime, but for some reason he chose to drive in instead of three-point attempt. They had no time to recover after their guard miss in the paint.

After a bright start in regular season Enisey slowed down a bit, they haven’t won a single game in 2020, and after defeat in Khimki for the first time this season have negative record but saved 6th spot in standings.

Loko don’t lose with Pashutin

Kuban Club management made first step by offering famous Russian specialist to be head coach: Loko won all the 5 games in United league after Pashutin’s return. Furthermore, all of 5 wins were hard: the differential in all games wasn’t more than 9 points.

Game vs Tsmoki-Minsk wasn’t easy neither: Kuban were losing after first half, and final quarter wasn’t comfortable for them. Nice defense was helpful: Loko showed why they are the best defensive team on their homecourt this season in the league, and didn’t let Minsk score more than 70 points.

Lokomotiv-Kuban indeed defend their homecourt better than any team in the league, allowing only 73.6 points. For example, 2nd CSKA allow 78.3 points.

Game’s hero Alan Williams who set week’s best performance: 25 points, 16 rebounds, 38 efficiency points – Loko’s center set his United league records.

First UNICS hundred in Poland

During summer significantly renewed the roster, thus basketball style changed. If in previous seasons Dimitrios Priftis’ team’s signature was defence then now it is offense.

Away game vs Zielona Gora was tough but UNICS managed to take the W and continued chasing top-3 leaders. This game Kazan for the first time this season reached 100 points.

Defeat from on of season’s leaders isn’t the worst part. Drew Gordon’s injury looks way more serious, in fact got in amazing shape and were unstoppable in last games. Zan Tabak, Zielona Gora’s head coach during a post-game conference couldn’t assess the injury, and said that the details would be known after deep medical examination.

Kalev break losing streak.

Tallinn started powerfully with wins over UNICS and Zenit, weren’t good in December, suffered from 3 consecutive losses and fell off top-8. The situation was improved on Monday: Kalev left no chance to Avtodor.

The Estonians that had been missing victories were up by 17 allowing guests to score only 28 points in 20 minutes. During the game the gap reached 20 points, but final differential was little less – 88:76.

A thing to celebrate Saratov fans still have: posterizer of Aleksandr Petenev over 2 Kalev players was one of the brightest plays of the week.

All-VTB United league team of the week

Standings

Competition in the season is incredible: only 4 teams have negative balance, and 5th team is separated with 12th with only 2 victories!