Champions recover, Juskevicius vs Shved, and Hicks’ showtime return. Week in review

All the main events of week 7

CSKA outpace Loko and hold second place.

A few days before the game Loko’s head coach Luca Banchi gave an interview where he said that the main task for his team against CSKA had been concentration throughout all 40 minutes. Furthermore, Luca recalled that he was coaching CSKA guard Daniel Hackett.

“We should play with extreme dedication against CSKA. We are ready” – Luca Banchi

However, Hackett didn’t participate in this game but even without him Moscow managed to take the win. CSKA were controlling the game and didn’t let their rivals take the lead even after Dimitris Itoudis was out because of 2 technical fouls

Loko succeeded its defensive task – the Red-blues that had had best offence in the league before this game (93.3 pts on average), hardly managed to score over 80.

The truth is that Krasnodar didn’t show good offence neither: 72 points in one game is the worst Loko’s result this season.

After this game CSKA holds the second place, outpacing Loko.

Power Up

The next day after the game against CSKA, Loko announced that they had signed Mindaugas Kuzminskas. He had been playing for Zalgiris in VTB League (2010-13) then in Spain, NBA, Italy and Greece.

Adas Juskevicius scored season-high 37 points but even that couldn’t stop Khimki

One of the most interesting games of the week was Khimki vs Parma. The hosts took a double digit lead a few times, but each time Perm were able to come back. And after Adas Juskevicius’ make guests even took the lead – 2 minutes before the final buzzer!

However, Alexey Shved got the last word: Khimki’s leader hit 2 threes in a row and gave his team a win – 7th consecutive win.

Juskevicius and Shved match up became one of the main stories of this game: PARMA’s guard set a new season-high for scoring in the league this season (37 points) and collected 7 assists, while Khimki’s leader had 24 points and 12 assists and now has the most double-doubles (12) among all active League’s players.

Monia was responsible for show-time that night. Firstly, he flew over the opponents’ basket:

And then blocked Mareks Meiers leaving him no chances at all:

Zenit has the first home win this season

Playing in two leagues – Euroleague and VTB has a negative influence on Zenit’s results in United League. Before this weekend Joan Plaza’s team had a 4-game losing streak holding 10th place in standings having 0 home wins.

Everything changed last Sunday, when Zenit played against Enisey at Sibur Arena. Krasnoyarsk won first quarter but then lost control over the game and were behind for 10-13 points all the second half long and got second loss this season.

Zenit was aggressive at defence and could stop Enisey’s offence – the guests scored less then they usually do. (80 with 85.3 on average).

Moreover, Joan Plaza wasn’t satisfied with his team’s basketball – ” I think that even this season we had better games. Previously we just couldn’t win – tonight we did”.

Astana win in clutch again

Harldy anyone is surpised with 3rd spot in standings for Astana after 7 weeks of regular season remembering team’s last year perfomance. But all three games were tough for Emil Raikovikj’s team and the game against Tsmoki-Minsk wasn’t an exception.

Astana were confidently leading during first 30 minutes but just like in the game against Zenit lost its big lead 0 14 points and made it to the clutch

Tsmoki were very close to get the first W this season – Rob Lowery attempted a shot for the win but it didn’t go in his ex-team’s basket. Malcolm Hill was cold-blooded in key moment:

However, Astana’s heroes were Dusan Ristic (20 points and 13 rebounds) and Jeremiah Hill (23 points and 7 assists). No wonder this Kazakhstan duo are in top-3 in efficiency ranking

UNICS beat Nizhny Novgorod and now have neutral record

UNICS vs Nizhny Novgorod games almost always end in clutch, and this game wasn’t an exception: Dimitrios Priftis’ team guaranteed the win only 1 minute before the buzzer.

UNICS hero was Raymar Morgan: forward, who finally recovered, had the best VTB League game: 30 points, 11 rebounds, 31 EFF points. It was Morgan’s and-one play that let UNICS get the W minute and a half before the buzzer.

Isaiah Hicks returns and lead Avtodor to their first win of the season

Avtodor did not start the season very successfully, and partly 0-4 in the standings is caused by injuries. On Sunday, the famous center Isaiah Hicks returned after the injury – and right on time: his performance helped Evgeny Pashutin’s team beat Kalev.

The forward was good on both ends of the court: he scored 28 points, and his 5 block shots – a new record for the season.

For the first time this season, Avtodor scored 100+ points – despite the fact that in the previous 4 games, they barely got over the mark of 80 (81.4).

League launches a new challenge for fans

It seems that two Latvians – Janis Timma (Khimki) and Janis Strelnieks (CSKA) – created a new trend: they scored three-pointer with one leg. The League decided to develop this idea and invited everyone to repeat these hits.

Team of the week

Standings

CSKA displaces Loko from the second place, Astana climb to the top three.