Kalev beat UNICS at home – 85:63 (22:21, 27:8, 13:13, 23:21).
Top scorers
Kalev: Aigars Skele (15), Kyle Vinales (14), Kristjan Kangur (14 + 9 rebounds + 5 assists), Sander Raieste (14)
UNICS: Jamar Smith (10), Alex Tyus (10 + 6 rebounds), Valerii Likhodey (10)
Story
UNICS took the lead in the beginning of the game after Haukur Palsson’s three – 5:3. This was their last lead of the game. However, nobody expected that guests would face big trouble – their rivals were up by only 1 after the first quarter. But in the beginning of the second quarter it became more serious – Kalev made a 17:2 run and the differential immidiately turned to double digits (39:23). UNICS couldn’t pull themselves together missing shots and commiting turnovers – almost 5 minutes Dimitios Priftis’ team couldn’t score a single basket. A few moments before the halftime break Aigars Skele hit the three and left UNICS way behind – 49:29 after 2 quarters.
🔥 Янари Йоэсаар колотит сверху, а «Калев» обыгрывает @unicsbasket после 1-й половины – 49:29! Включайте прямую трансляцию на https://t.co/yV5SuibzOt 📺
🔥 Janari Joesaar slams, Kalev leads over UNICS after 1st Half, 49-29! Watch live on https://t.co/yV5SuibzOt 📺 pic.twitter.com/0qcKZypRy2
— VTB United League (@VTBUL) October 12, 2019
Basically, Kalev just had to maintain the lead. Tallinn completely succeeded: a few times UNICS cut the lead to 16-17 points but Skele, Sten Sokk or Kyle Vinales immediately brought the 20-point differential back. Kazan didn’t manage to do anything about it – Kalev beat UNICS for the first time in 6 years.
Hero
Kristjan Kangur. Tallinn’s captain showed his point forward skills: he collected 14 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists.
Stat
4 turnovers by Kalev – it repeats 8th best result in League’s history.
Comments
UNICS head coach Dimitrios Priftis:
– First of all, congratulations to Kalev – they showed really good basketball tonight. That shocked us. There are some things that I can’t explain. Maybe, we just underestimated our rivals. Kalev played an impressive game against Nizhny Novgorod, so we knew who we are playing against. Tonight we were simply unprepared.
Kalev head coach Roberts Stelmahers:
– I’m really happy to win tonight. When you are up by 20 it’s not so easy to maintain the lead especially when you play against such team as UNICS. However, we were prepeared tonight and did good.
Photo
