Dimitris Priftis’ comment of the year, Astana and Zielona Gora upset Perm. Week in review

Dimitris Priftis’ comment of the year, Astana and Zielona Gora upset Perm. Week in review

United League’s week of basketball.

UNICS come back from 16 points down, Isaiah Canaan’s best performance in the League

The game in Kazan didn’t look like a big question. Tsmoki are not in best shape: Maksim Salash left to Burgos, and replacing such a leader will be a challenge. The forward was their top scorer (16.7), best in rebounds (5.7) and three-pointers (42.9%) and was among League’s top 10 scoring players.

Tsmoki stepped on court without injured centers Uladzimir Verameyanka and Klavs Cavars, but they were surprisingly strong and built a 16-point lead already in the first quarter:

Dimitris Priftis’ side started the chase and cut the deficit down to 4 points by the halftime break. Kazan switched on tight defense even with Isaiah Canaan’s highlights:

By the way, Canaan was the hero of UNICS who helped them win in the clutch. The guard showed his best performance in the United League and joined ’30+’ club with 33 scored.

Comment of the year

At post-game press conference, UNICS head coach Dimitris Priftis was harsh with his team and stressed out the unacceptable attitude:

“Big respect to the opponents, they played well. They are trained well, they fought well.
But I want to tell a story to everyone who listens to me. It is for everyone, the players, the coaches, my assistants. Every time you get ready to face an opponent. One day, one game. And then your mom calls and asks who do play today. “It’s Minsk”. “Ah, so you’ll surely win”. Because you are the best team in theory. And then your wife calls, and your daughter. And everyone says you’ll win. And it happens to all of us. We come to play with mentality of our wives, moms and daughters. Even we think that we’ll get an easy win. But this “Ah, ok” is the greatest illusion and self-disrespect. Because tonight, there were 12 players, and we, the coaches who came here thinking we’d win only because we got on the floor. Like the opponent will not move and be ready to lose. Because we’re better. Because Tsmoki won only one game and they’re in the bottom. And we think we’ll win because our wives and moms said it would be an easy game. CSKA of course is tough one, we gotta be serious. But for all of us tonight was the hardest game. If we don’t change our attitude, we’ll lose. We’ll lose to oursleves.”

This powerful confession from UNICS head coach is the best preview for Kazan’s game vs CSKA which will be played on December 26 in Tatarstan capital.

Enisey were close to 20-point comeback in Nizhny

This game’s scenario was more or less predictable. NN (ranked 2nd) were leading throughout most part of the game even reaching 20-point difference. Aleksandr Gankevich made a couple of dunks to the joy of local fans:

But in the last quarter, Enisey paced up and levelled the game 2 minutes before the buzzer. Krasnoyarsk even had chances to take the lead, but the free throws didn’t work well: 6 missed in the end of the game.

Meanwhile, Kasey Shepherd showed his clutch skills. 10 of 14 points scored in the last quarter, and the key 3-pointer 40 seconds before the end.

Nizhny Novgorod are ranked second, right after Zenit, with only 1 loss in 6 games. Moreover, Zoran Lukic’s side is still undefeated at home with 4-4 record.

Astana and Zielona Gora get lookalike wins in Perm

PARMA had 2 home games and both ended with bitter losses in the last moments.

On Wednsday, Kazys Maksvytis’ side couldn’t handle Jeremiah Hill. The guard of Astana scored nothing from mid range, but sank 7 three-pointers (career high in the League) and became a top scorer of the night with 21 points.

However, in the end it was not Hill, but Martins Meiers who worked under the backboard and scored crucial 4 points.

After the game, Kazys Maksvytis took the blame for the defeat, “The team fought, but unfortunately, played with bad mentality. We’ve made a lot of mistakes. We have to improve that.”

However, they didn’t manage to tackle all the problems quickly. On Sunday, PARMA were beaten again, in the same manner. It’s fair to mention that Zielona Gora had three leaders instead of one: Iffe Lundberg, Geoffrey Groselle and Rolands Freimainis scored 65 points of team’s 85!

PARMA again had a chance to save the game, but the defence couldn’t hold it. However, it is really difficult to stop the opposition who have 3 of of top 6 offensive players of the United League.

2 months ago, Zielona Gora were second to last, but with 5 wins in 7 games, the Polish climbed to playoff zone. After this win, they even moved Perm from the 7th place.

Special date

PARMA have been playing in the United League since 2016. But only 2 players remain in Perm from that age. Nikolay Zhmako and Konstantin Bulanov.

This game vs Zielona Gora was the 100th for Zhmako in VTB League. He’s the first PARMA player to hit that.

Konstantin Bulanov has 92 games for PARMA.

Signings

Avtodor are the hottest League team with 5 straight wins. But Saratov needs more: this Sunday they announced signing 224 cm center from Chad. Christ Koumadje plays his 2nd professional season. Last year, he was named the best defending player of G-League (Delaware), and in summer moved to Spain (6 games for Estudiantes).

On Tuesday, Tsmoki announced parting ways with Maksim Salash. The next day, the Dragons inked with another young player from Belarus. 22-year-old Dzianis Vikentsyeu spent 3 years in Latvia, and this season represented Kupola-Rudniki from Superliga-1.

Kalev are still looking for a strengthening. They’ve contracted Brano Dukanovic, the 25-year-old Serbian guard. He played for Crvena Zvezda, and spent last 3 seasons in Spanish second league.

Team of the week

Standings