Khimki set new scoring records, Pashutin starts with victory in Loko, and Tsmoki are extremely unlucky in Poland. 12th week in review

Three-point rain in Khimki, come back in Zielona Gora, Evgeny Pashutin’s debut in Krasnodar – and more interesting events of 12th week of the season.

Khimki set records in game against Kalev

Khimki continue their winning streak. On Sunday, Rimas Kurtinaitis’ team beat Kalev for the second time this season making it their way: 19 accurate threes – new season high (2nd best result in the entire history). Furthermore, Khimki set one more record scoring 118 points in one game.

It’s interesting that 11 Khimki players hit at least 1 long-range shot. The only player without a three was Viacheslav Zaitsev

Despite the defeat Kalev stays on 6th place in standings and still are dangerous opponents for every league’s team. Moreover, a few days ago Tallinn announced that they had signed 2 forwards – Michael Finke and Sacha Killeya-Jones.

Pashutin wins in his Krasnodar debut after return

It’s been a week since Evgeny Pashutin came back to Krasnodar as a head coach but team is already playing entirely new basketball and wins: on Wednesday they won an important game in Eurocup, and on Saturday they crushed PARMA.

Ambitious Perm were leading for almost the whole game in Krasnodar but as Evgeny Pashutin said on a press-conference, Loko players could unite and showed their team spirit.

Krasnodar proved one more time that at Basket Hall they play much more confident: PARMA, who was 3rd best offensive team before this game, could score only 75 points – 12 points below their average.

Krunic leads Avtodor to the second win in the ending

Avtodor won 2nd consecutive game beating Nizhny Novgorod at home. During the game they came back from -10 and showed good defense on last seconds not letting Nizhny celebrate the victory.

Two last wins – over Loko and Nizhny Novgorod – were snatched in clutches, and significant contribution to it was made by Predrag Krunic, new Avtodor’s head coach, who took the team only 3 weeks ago.

Competition in 2019/20 season in VTB league is the highest. Who could imagine that Avtodor that started with 4 losses would come back in play-off zone in a month, moving Euroleague participant Zenit and last season sensation – Astana?

Posterizer of the week

Elgin Cook didn’t feel any resistance from Aleksandr Gankevich:

CSKA score 100+ against Astana

Before the game vs Astana CSKA guard Mike James received MVP of November award – Red-blues’ leader was averaging 16.3 points with 53.6 FG%!

After previous round CSKA went up to the second spot in standings, and on this Sunday settled there via victory over Astana. CSKA scored 100+ for the fourth time this season, and Mike James became the top scorer with 23 points. However, Johannes Voigtmann was more spectacular that night – center started scoring duel against Astana’s forward Malcolm Hill. As a result Voigtmann hit 4/4 threes, and Hill – 6/7!

Block-shot of the week

Mareks Mejeris to Sam Dekker “This is your house but my basket”.

Zielona Gora come back from -13 in 6 minutes

It seems like each article about Tsmoki this season can be started with “Belarus were extremely close to the victory” – that’s how Rostislav Vergun’s squad is unlucky in clutches. It was so on Sunday: Minsk started the fourth brightly against Zielona Gora showing lockdown defense – the Polish scored 3 points in four minutes – and gained 13-point lead with 6 minutes left on the clock. However, they couldn’t keep the score to the final buzzer.

The game continued in overtime, where spirited Polish got the win and got back in the play-off zone. Tsmoki’s head coach Rostislav Vergun paid tribute to the opponent and claimed that basketball is the best sport even after such a loss.

Ivan Urgant to host All Star Game

On Thursday VTB United league announced that Ivan Urgant will host All-Star Game 2020. Ivan hosted all three previous All-Star Games of VTB league!

All-VTB United team of the week

Standings

10 VTB league teams are separated with less than 3 wins. Unbelievable competition!