Avtodor beat Zenit on the road — 83:74 (30:21, 14:12, 23:23, 16:18).
The best scorers
Zenit: Billy Baron (15), Mindaugas Kuzminskas (14), Sergey Karasev (12), Igor Volkhin (10)
Avtodor: Grant Jerrett (20 + 9 rebounds), Jaron Johnson (14) Anton Kvitkovskikh (12 + 5 rebounds), Pavel Sergeev (12), Zeljko Sakic (10 + 9 rebounds)
Game progress
The rivals approached the battle for the 2nd place with a long winning streak: at Zenit, it was 5 games in a row, as for Avtodor — 6. And the Saratov team immediately began to demonstrate how they were going to extend their winning streak. Less than five minutes of the game had passed, and Avtodor was already leading 13:5, and 9 points out of 13 were scored by 3-point shots. Zenit quickly recovered from this unusual start of the guests and gave out a powerful possesions, the initiator was Sergey Karasev, who scored 7 points in a row.
Сергей Карасев начинает Матч недели с 3 попаданий подряд 🎯 pic.twitter.com/lLBTqo5w3n
— VTB League (@VTBUL) December 20, 2021
However, the end of the quarter was again the lead by Emil Rajkovic’s team, and again the reason for this was the 3-point shots — in total, Avtodor scored 6 three-pointers for the 1st half. By the end of the 1st quarter, Avtodor’s advantage was quite comfortable — 30:21.
Having thrown out a lot of strength at the start of the game, Avtodor reduced the intensity of their offensive possesions. The quick offense was changed into positional basketball. Billy Baron and Mindaugas Kuzminskas actions helped Zenit to reduce the gap to 5 points, but Avtodor added again before the halftime — as in the first 10 minutes, Zeljko Sakic and Anton Kvitkovskikh made their 3-point shots. By the end of the 1st half, Avtodor’s advantage had already become double-digit – 44:33.
After the halftime, the teams had a very bright and productive 3rd quarter, Pavel Sergeev became the key player and scored 10 points. But although at the end of the 10 minutes the teams broke up with a draw – 23:23, for Zenit it was a wake-up call, since the 11-point advantage of the guests remained before the start of the final quarter.
The key moment
In the final quarter, Zenit tried to make a run, but Avtodor still looked much fresher and easily kept the hosts at a comfortable distance. The tension grew, and three minutes before the end of the game, Xavi Pascual got a technical foul. Avtodor scored 3 free-throws, continuing to have a double-digit lead. The hosts had the last hope that Billy Baron would find his shot at the end of the game. But all four Zenit’s 3-point attempts were missed. Having confidently beaten the St. Petersburg team, Avtodor regains the 1st place in the standings.
Hero
Grant Jerrett. The most active Avtodor player performed as a bigman (5 offensive rebounds), and can shot 3-point shots. As a result, Jerret stopped a step away from the double-double of 20 + 10 and became the most resultative player of the game.
Numbers
1 – Avtodor will stay at the top of thestandings at least until December 26, when Zenit will play with UNICS. And if the St. Petersburg team will win, then Avtodor will finish the calendar year as the leader.
Comments
Emil Rajkovic, Avtodor Head Coach :
– It was a good game for us. Congratulations to my players, they showed character today. We played against a Euroleague team that recently returned from France with two wins against Monaco and ASVEL. Their main creators did not take part in the game today – Loyd and Mickey. Despite this, Zenit has a very high-quality squad. We have won an important game for us. It helps us to stay at the top of the standings, as well as feel confident against any opponent on any floor. I hope that this win will be a good motivation for us in the future.
Xavier Pascual, Zenit head Coach :
– Congratulations to Avtodor on the win. Now our team is facing a lot of problems. Kuzminskas and Zubkov took part in the game after suffering a fever. Frankamp felt dizzy during the game – all this because of the collision that occurred in the game with ASVEL. Ponitka was injured. Kulagin and Loyd were left out of the game due to a fever. Jordan Mickey is also injured. If we talk about the game, we did not approach it well enough, in the 1st quarter we played poorly in defense, but in the 2nd half of the game the players tried.
What’s next
Zenit: home game against UNICS on December 26
Avtodor: road game versus CSKA on January 4
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