UNICS Kazan defeated Tsmoki-Minsk at home, 98-71 (33-10, 23-23, 23-19, 19-19).
Top Scorers
UNICS: Keith Langford (42 + 5 rebounds + 6 assists), Marko Banic (12), Quino Colom (5 + 12 assists)
Tsmoki-Minsk: Aliaksandr Semianiuk (19 + 5 rebounds), Djordje Gagic (11), Justin Gray (10)
Keith Langford
Kazan’s superstar guard set a new league record, dropping 42 points on 14-20 shooting (5-10 from downtown) to go with 9-9 from the line.
The old record of 41 points belonged to Krasny Oktyabr’s Randy Culpepper, set in October 2013.
Langford started the game on fire, scoring 16 of Kazan’s first 22 points as the home team raced to a 22-8 lead.
He added 5 rebounds and 6 assists, finishing with an efficiency rating of 47, one of the best marks in League history.
Stat
33 – Tsmoki committed 20 turnovers, leading to 33 points off turnovers for Kazan. Ultimately, that was the difference in the game. UNICS only turned the ball over 5 times, leading to just 8 Tsmoki points.
Resilience
Despite dropping two Euroleague games earlier in the week and losing Anton Ponkrashov to injury, UNICS stretched its League-best winning streak to five games.
Evgeny Pashutin was also able to use his bench, as 11 different men played in the blowout.
Quotes
UNICS head coach Evgeny Pashutin:
– Our plan to play aggressive defense worked, especially in the 1st quarter. We also controlled the game on offense, shut down our opponent’s leaders and used a big rotation. When our lead ballooned, we let ourselves relax, and immediately gave up some easy buckets. But, and this is most important, we regained our confidence after losing Clarke and Ponkrashov. Marko Banic, Latavious Williams played much better today. And, for the most part, we didn’t fall apart in the final minutes after a confident start.
Tsmoki-Minsk head coach Igor Grishchuk:
– I want to congratulate UNICS. They have a good team. They didn’t give us a chance today. But it’s not the end of the world. We’ll keep fighting.
Up Next
UNICS: November 6 at Khimki
Tsmoki-Minsk: November 6 at VEF
Snapshot
