CSKA Moscow defeated Zenit St. Petersburg at home, 105-56 (24-16, 33-16, 25-16, 23-8).
Top Scorers
CSKA: Vitaly Fridzon (23), Nando De Colo (17 + 9 ast), Cory Higgins (12)
Zenit: Kyle Landry (21 + 5 reb), Anton Pushkov (10 + 5 reb)
Turning Point
CSKA left Zenit no chance on Sunday, amassing a 25-point lead by halftime behind 14 points and eight assists from Nando De Colo. The Army Men also used their depth, with six different players scoring five or more points in the first half.
Playing without leading scorers Janis Timma and Sergey Karasev, the visitors simply couldn’t match CSKA’s firepower, slumping to a 49-point defeat.
Stat
29 – number of CSKA assists.
Star
Nando De Colo. The Frenchman finished with an efficient 17 points, 9 assists in 16 minutes on the court.
Quotes
CSKA head coach Dimitris Itoudis:
– Zenit is a serious team and plays good basketball. Today, they were missing two important players. Congratulations to my team not only on the win, but also their approach to the game and good performance. We demonstrated that approach in the game against Olympiacos, and today we hustled after loose balls and weren’t afraid of physical contact. Obviously, we tried to spread out playing time, especially since we had issues: Teodosic was running a temperature and Jackson didn’t feel good. Despite that, we played well on offense and respected the VTB League and our accomplishments.
Zenit head coach Vasily Karasev:
– Obviously, this type of game did not sit well with us. When you’re playing the best team in Europe, you need a full roster and great preparation. We were missing two key players, which had an immediate impact on the rotation. We changed our game: We were exposed at the ‘3’ position and had issues at the ‘4’. But that doesn’t excuse us. You need to come out and compete, though many play against CSKA, like the Bander-logs against Kaa the python in the Jungle Book, with shaking hands and feet.
Up Next
CSKA: November 13 vs. Parma
Zenit: November 13 vs. Nizhny Novgorod
Snapshot
