Enisey beat Tsmoki-Minsk at home — 86:79 (18:13, 21:17, 23:27, 24:22).
The best scorers
Ensiey: Casper Ware (22 + 5 rebounds), Brinton Lemar (21), Rion Brown (10 + 9 rebounds).
Tsmoki-Minsk: Angelo Warner (19), Stefan Jankovic (13 + 5 rebounds), Jason Clark (13), Yauheni Beliankou (12), Darol Hernandez-Zinenko (10).
Game progress
The teams are direct competitors in the battle for a place in the playoffs. And this added motivation to them in this game. All this could not but affect the starting segment of the game. In a sticky game, neither side could gain a clear advantage. The leader factor was the key one. In Casper Ware and Stefan Jankovic duel, Rnisey guard won. This ensured Enisey lead at the end of the 1st quarter – 18:13.
🚨 Casper Ware closes 1st Q vs Tsmoki with the buzzer! pic.twitter.com/vUDmIBekyC
— VTB League (@VTBUL) December 18, 2021
In the 2nd quarter, the teams finally catch fire. The Krasnoyarsk team were the first to recover. A series of Brinton Lemar and Timofey Yakushin shots allowed the hosts to break away to 17 points at some point – 35:18. But Tsmoki withstood this run. Belarusian players, among whom Andrei Stabruski stood out, led the guests’ return run. In the last 3 minutes of the quarter, the guard scored 8 points. Tsmoki were able to avoid a double-digit difference before the halftime – 30:39.
The productive game was continued in the 3rd quarter. Moreover, the guests looked more confident here. The American legionnaires became the key players. Angelo Warner and Jason Clarke duo scored 17 points in the quarter. Tsmoki reduced by another 4 points, which promised a tense ending – 57:62.
The key moment
Until the middle of the final quarter, there was a close game on the floor. Enisey broke this balance. Brinton Lemar’s free-throws, Alexey Babushkin’s 3-pointer and Lemar’s effective steal returned Enisey a comfortable lead – 74:66. The Minsk team tried to save the game in the end. But using tactical fouls turned out a failure. Enisey confidently scored free-throws, without giving the opponent a real chance to move the game into overtime.
Ensiey won the 2nd game in a row and rose to 8th place in the standings, pushing Kalev.
Hero
Brinton Lemar was the key player in Enisey offesne for most of the game. The guard made 6 of 9 shots from the field, scored 21 points and became the best player of the game in +/- ratio (+16) and efficiency (22).
Numbers
1 – win over Tsmoki became the 1st home game for Enisey this season.
What’s next
Enisey: home game against PARMA-PARIMATCH on December 23
Tsmoki-Minsk: road game versus Astana on January 15
Comments
Drazen Anzulovic, Enisey Head Coach:
– It was a very important win! I want to congratulate my players, although I am not very happy with the level of the game. However, a win is a win, and without this result, winning in Nur-Sultan would not have made sense. We got the second win in a row, and every win for us is a success. We started well, although we didn’t move the ball fast enough, in the second quarter we added to this component, maintaining good defense, scored 17 points and stopped. And we have this problem all season. We have to play with great desire and dedication from the first to the last minute, we can lose, but we have to give our all. Without these qualities, we will have problems with winning the game, and we will work to fix it.
Rostislav Vergun, Tsmoki-Monsk Head Coach:
– The modern game consists of many small very important details, and very often it seems to us that we will be able to fix the situation, that this moment is not so important. Already in the first half we let them score 7 points, missed 8 free-throws. Somewhere there were absolutely unnecessary fouls when the opponent could not find his shots. In fact, without a center, we were able to impose a battle and did not concede much, finding our way to defense.
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