Coach change doesn’t help Khimki beat UNICS, Gora come back from -20, Mikhailovskii set career-high. Week in review

Smith and Canaan beat Shved, Saint-Petersburg and Moscow continue to race, PARMA and Avtodor brake bad streaks, Zielona Gora show their will in Minsk.

Khimki change head coach, UNICS win in Moscow

2 days before the game against UNICS Khimki announced that Rimas Kurtinaitis, that has been heading the team for almost 2 years was dismissed, the acting head coach is Andrey Maltsev.

However, UNICS managed to win in Khimki for the first time in 3 years but the game was hot. Firstly, we saw top scorers shootout: Alexey Shved (33 points) led Khimki to an important victory but Jamar Smith (22 points) and Isaiah Canaan (22 points) had their own opinion.

Secondly, although both teams shooters were red hot the brightest (and the most efficient among Kazan) player was John Brown III. At first, he stole the ball and dunked in a fast break:

And then, after Jamar Smith’s alley-oop lob he flew to the first place in a week highlights top:

Besides, this alley-oop with 30 seconds left on the scoreboard became the game-winner: Khimki couldn’t recover from it.

Thirdly, Alexey Shved showed that there is always a solution:

However, not Alexey Shved and not John Brown III had the most popular play of the game, it was Sergey Monia, 37 years old veteran blocked Isaiah Canaan:

This game saved UNICS the third place they continue to chase the leading duo Zenit and CSKA. Khimki are now 8th and have negative record.

Zielona Gora come back in Minsk

The brightest comeback of the week took place in Minsk: Zielona Gora recovered from a 20-point differential and beat Tsmoki.

The Belarussians were very close to the second consecutive victory: they started the game with 18-3 run, left one of the League’s best offenses with 31 first half points and were pleasing the fans with highlight plays:

Nevertheless, the second half was fully under Zielona Gora’s control: the Poles almost evened the score by the third quarter, and in the ending took the first lead of the game and didn’t give it back. Iffe Lundberg became the main hero: the Dane scored 20+ points again and gave out 7 assists:

After the game Zielona Gora head coach Zan Tabak quoted Dimitrios Priftis blaming his players for wrong approach for the game: “As my UNICS collegue said, we step on the court with the opinion about the opponent that were expressed by our friends, the fans, the media often. But we have to stay professionals. We knew what Tsmoki were capable of. They play aggressively, with dedication and never give up. We knew it because we have watched their game. Our mistake was that we haven’t prepared mentally enough for the game”

Avtodor break losing streak

Avtodor 3-game losing streak ended this week: Saratov beat Kalev. The result was expected as the Estonians came to Russia with 8 players because of injuries and COVID-19 positive tests.

However, Kalev didn’t want to give up, they won the first quarter and were only 4 points behind by the half time. Anyway, they ran out of gas in the second: without League’s best scorer Marcus Keene Tallinn managed to score only 21 points after the half time letting Avtodor celebrate their first victory in 2021.

The brightest player on Avtodor roster was Nikita Mikhailvoskii: 20 years old guard set a new career-high in the League scoring 24 points:

Saratov showed their best defense of the season allowing only 61 points. One of the best Avtodor defensive players was center Evgeniy Minchenko who had 4 blocks that game:

PARMA take franchise biggest away victory

PARMA is another League’s team that broke their losing streak this week. The half time separated Krasnoyarsk game in two halves: in the first Enisey led and it looked like they wer on their way to the second victory of the season.

And in the second Krasnoyarsk offense stopped: the team scored 5 points in the third quarter and 9 in the 4th. Meanwhile, PARMA benefited from it: before the final quarter the differential was 21 points.

Perm were shooting threes efficiently after the half time: in the third the mostly ended their possessions with accurate threes.

This win became the franchise record for PARMA in the United League, the team broke 4-game losing streak and now they are 9th in the standings and have the same number of wins as Khimki.

Avtodor traditionally is putting pressure against us here but today we dominated.

In their last game in Saratov CSKA won in overtime via Nando de Colo 41 points. A year before it CSKA came back from -10. And before that only Artem Zabelin’s miss on last seconds saved Moscow.

In other words, in latest seasons away games against Avtodor were close ones for CSKA. But this time, Dimitris Itoudis’s squad was significantly stronger despite Mike James, Will Clyburn and Daniel Hackett absence. Saratov were losing their paint and couldn’t do anything with opponents’ bigs: Nikola Milutinov, Tornike Shengelia and Johannes Voigtmann collected 21 rebounds combined, it is 6 less than the whole Avtodor team did.

Losing 22 points by the half time Avtodor showed spirit stopping CSKA offense in winning the third. 4th quarter was even (24:24) but it wasn’t enough for the win. There were other positive moments in Avtodor’s game: center Evgeniy Minchenko made a highlight block:

After the game Dimitris Itoudis highlighted his team’s good approach: “We were serious from the beginning until the end. Avtodor traditionally is putting pressure against us here but today we dominated”

Interesting fact: Alexander Khomenko debuted as a CSKA starter. He became the first CSKA academy pupil to be a starter in the main team after junior VTB League. Young guard spent his best United League game scoring 14 points and 2 assists.

Loko outpace Nizhny in Standings

Nizhny finished 2020 on the second place winning 6 of 7 games. After a home game against Loko Zoran Lukic’s team got down to 5th spot.

Loko victory was well deserved: on the first minute the guests took the lead and didn’t lose it all game long, also they didn’t let NN tie the game. At some point Evgeny Pashutin’s team were up by 21 points.

Will Cummings was Loko’s leader that game. The guard scored 25 points with 8 from 11 from the field, 3 rebounds, 3 assists and League career-high 29 efficiency points:

Zenit show best defense of the season

In the last game of the week Zenit came to Tallinn to play against Kalev. Petersburg haven’t won in Estonia since November-2017, Xavi Pascual emphasized their players spirit: “We have to save this approach for the games with concentration and energy. First game against Kalev at home was tight, thus we should be ready to dedicate”

Zenit players didn’t let coach down: in the first quarter alone the differential was double digit, and by the end of the game the guests were 36 points ahead showing best defense of the season allowing only 51 points. They lacked 1 point to set a new franchise record: Vita scored 50 in 2015/16 season.

Kalev continue to struggle because of roster problems due to COVID-19 positive tests. Head coach Roberts Stelmahers said that the team still don’t practice together.

tickets

In the middle of the week the League put All-Star Game tickets on sale, it will take place on February 14 in Moscow at VTB Arena. Fifth All-Star Game tickets are available at https://allstar2021.vtb-league.com,and on Yandex Afisha and VTB Arena.

Voting

A month before the All-Star Game the fans voting started. It is available to choose the players of your favourite team on Vkontakte. The voting ends on January 25. Choose your heroes!

Vote for players on All-Star Game!

Team of the week

Standings