Zielona Gora beat Nizhny Novgorod on the road – 87:82 (24:20, 22:28, 17:21, 24:13).
Top scorers
Nizhny Novgorod: Chavaughn Lewis (19), Darral Willis (16+6 rebounds), Evgenii Baburin (11)
Zielona Gora: Ludvig Hakanson (22+8 rebounds+5 assists), Drew Gordon (18+7 rebounds)
Story
The guests very confidently spent the first 10 minutes – at some point they were up by ten (18: 8), and only in the end of the quarter, due to the important shots of Chavaughn Lewis and Evgenii Baburin, Nizhny Novgorod managed to reduce the gap – 24:20 . In the next game part, the hosts began to break the situation: the duet of Baburin and Georgy Zhbanov was especially active – they scored 15 points in a quarter, which allowed Nizhny to approach the halftime break already as leaders – 48:46.
Nizhny Novgorod came even closer to the victory in the third quarter – the team of Zoran Lukic made a 15:6 run towards victory and managed to get a solid advantage (63:52). However, at the end of the quarter, Mateuzc Ponitka managed by “and-one” to make the ground of Zielona Gora up to -6.
Key moment
The active ending of the third quarter was taken by the guests – inspired, they started to attack the basket. First of all, Nizhny again managed to gain a solid ten points advantage (73:63), but then Ludvig Hakanson moved into action. Three minutes before the buzzer his 5 points in a row reduced the difference to a minimum of 81:79, and in the next possession the restless Swede gave his team a lead – 81:80! The guests guard also played well in intentional fouls, scoring 4 free throws in a row, which finally set the game in favor of the Polish team. Zielona Gora get the second victory in the season.
Hero
Ludvig Hakanson. The Swede became the top scorer of the game, but his main achievements came at a crucial fourth quarter – Hakanson scored 15 points from a total of 22 in it!
Stat
3 of 17 three-pointer were hit by Zan Tabak players in this game. They compensated for the low accuracy from behind the arc with an excellent percentage of two-pointers (71%) and free throws (88%).
Comments
Nizhny Novgorod’s head coach Zoran Lukic:
– It is a difficult moment for us now. We lost the game in the last five minutes. We read the game for 35 minutes, but if you cannot control the last 5, then there can be no talk about a positive result. It’s a pity, the victory was in our hands. There weren’t enough right decisions to finish the game. At a key moment, we lost two players who could affect the outcome – Brandon Brown had four fouls, Evgenii Baburin was injured. However, I do not want this to sound like an excuse. Now it is necessary to return the team back to normal condition after three defeats in a row.
Zielona Gora’s head coach Zan Tabak:
– For us, this is a big victory against a team that shows great basketball. Frankly, I didn’t know in what condition my team would enter the court today. We just played the game on the road in the championship of Poland, then we were in the road all day, and I was afraid that we would have no energy left for the game. But we overcame ourselves. The key point was that in the fourth quarter we had to put in a zone due to a bunch of fouls, and Nizhny did not come up with a way to deal with it.
Next
Nizhny Novgorod: 25 November on the road against CSKA
Zielona Gora: 25 November on the road against Lokomotiv-Kuban
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