CSKA defeated Khimki on the road, 92-70 (33-15, 21-21, 21-8, 17-26).
Top Scorers
Khimki: Sergey Monia (15+6 reb), E.J. Rowland (12+6 reb+6 ast), Robbie Hummel (12+5 reb)
CSKA: Nando De Colo (18), Cory Higgins (14), Kyle Hines (13), Vitaly Fridzon (12)
Turning Point
Khimki was forced to play without leading scorer Alexey Shved, who was recently named the 2016-17 EuroCup MVP. From the opening tip, Moscow Region struggled to score without its explosive shooting guard, falling behind 26-9 early.
Kyle Hines scored 10 for CSKA and the visitors went 4-4 from beyond the arc in the 1st quarter as they raced to a 33-15 advantage.
Khimki never threatened again, trailing by 18 at halftime, before going down by as much as 37 in the 4th quarter.
CSKA moves to 19-2 on the season, one game up on 2nd-place Zenit. Khimki falls to 16-4, two games ahead of 4th-place Lokomotiv.
Stat
28 – number of CSKA assists.
Quotes
Khimki head coach Dusko Ivanovic:
– Unfortunately, the game did not work out today. CSKA played very well. They were quicker, stronger and more aggressive. They picked up a quick lead and showed once again why they are one of the best teams in Europe. I didn’t see enough aggressiveness from my men today. To be honest, I don’t want to think about this game. We can only look ahead.
As for injuries, Brown needs 2-3 weeks to recover. I hope Shved will be ready for our next game. It’s obvious that Alexey is our leader. Unfortunately, we were bothered by CSKA’s pressure and couldn’t find anyone else to lead the team.
CSKA head coach Dimitris Itoudis:
– Congratulations to the team. We were better today and played better basketball. We were able to get a big lead. At some point, we decided to preserve energy, but we earned a valuable win in the VTB United League. As I noted, we’ve been playing on the road a lot in March, but we’ve been solid so far.
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Up Next
Khimki: April 2 at Nizhny Novgorod
CSKA: April 3 vs. Kalev
