CSKA displace Nizhny from second place

CSKA displace Nizhny from second place

CSKA beat Nizhny Novgorod on the road – 83:63 (24:21, 22:14, 20:15, 17:13)

Top scorers
Nizhny Novgorod: Kasey Shepherd (17), Evgenii Baburin (12), Artem Komolov (10)
CSKA: Tornike Shengelia (22), Darrun Hilliard (13), Janis Strelnieks (13)

Story
Although CSKA are a confident contender they were behind the main sensation of the season in standings. CSKA came to Nizhny to change the situation.
However, the guests were not to be called front runners in the first quarter – the game was even. Tornike Shengelia and Darrun Hilliard actions were answered by accurate shots by Ivan Strebkov and Evgenii Baburin. Almost all the first quarter long CSKA were up but couldn’t gain comfortable lead, and by the end of the first quarter Alexander Chadov evened the score – 19:19.

On the last minute Janis Strelnieks brought the lead back to CSKA again – 24:21 but this lead wasn’t significant, by the middle of the second quarter Nizhny were keeping up with CSKA.

The change happened with 32:32 on the scoreboard. Daniel Hackett and Shengelia made an 11:3 run: their accurate threes and Shengelia’s and-one were answered only by Kasey Shepherd. After two free throws by Nikola Milutinov CSKA finally gained the double digit lead – 46:35. That was the score by the half time break.

Key moment
The hosts started the second half actively and cut the difference to 7 points. But Nikita Kurbanov and Tornike Shengelia brought the double figures lead back quickly. In the third CSKA were fully controlling the game, with s minute left in the quarter Hilliard started a run, 6 points by the American brought CSKA the biggest lead of the game (66:50). Baburin and Shepherd tried to save the game but they only managed to cut the gap to 10 points. CSKA took 9th victory in 11 games, took the second place and continued to chase Zenit that lead in the United League. Nizhny suffered the second loss in the season and Zoran Lukic’s squad is still in top-3.

Hero
Tornike Shengelia. The Georgian forward is adapting better to Dimitris Itoudis’ system in every game and set new scoring-highs. This game Shengelia scored 20+ points for the first time and became the top scorer (22) and most efficient player (21).

Stat
63 points – worst Nizhny’s result this season. Losing their leader Anton Astapkovich Nizhny set a new scoring-low (old – 64 points against Loko).

Comments
Nizhny Novgorod head coach Zoran Lukic:
– A tough game for us. The game that helped us look at things realistic. In the end of the 2nd and 4th quarter we made a series of mistakes. In the second – tactical mistakes in offense, in the fourth – 4 turnovers and 4 misses from the charity stripe. We made a 20-points difference ourselves. I think, that some of our players didn’t deserve this gap in the end. But we are the team, and the team take responsibility together. Today’s game is a good lesson for us.

CSKA head coach Dimitris Itoudis:
– I want to congratulate my team on the victory. Today, we demonstrated our serious approach and achieved the result that we are satisfied with. I want to note our defense. Maybe, we could shoot better from the distance but we were almost perfect at defense. We forced our opponents to make 15 turnovers and didn’t allow easy shots. Of course, we had struggling moments but it is okay considering our schedule.
Because of this reason Mike James hasn’t played tonight, and we tried to give minutes to everyone.

Next
Nizhny Novgorod: January 9 @ Tsmoki-Minsk
CSKA: January 18 @ Avtodor

Photo03/01/2021 Nizhny Novgorod-CSKA 63:83