Week left in the regular season!
Loko sent CSKA on the fourth spot
The games between Lokomotiv and CSKA are always interesting. And when 3rd place is at stake, the temperature on the court gets higher.
Before the beginning of the game Loko were in a better situation: Kuban finished their European season and focused on VTB League. CSKA came to Krasnodar without Hackett and Bolomboy and also had to keep in mind upcoming Euroleague quarter-final games against Fenerbahce.
It hardly influenced the game. At least, the offense. By the half time both teams scored 50+ points, this is the second time in confrontation history in the League (the first one was in 2017 play-offs). Loko had a record in the first half against CSKA (53).
How Loko managed to keep the lead to the final buzzer? Evgeny Pashutin said that the guys played with heart for all 40 minutes. Mindaugas Kuzminskas added, that when Loko show this game they are hard to stop. Dimitris Itoudis admitted the defeat, “Congratulations to Lokomotiv on the victory. The opponents were better tonight and deserved the win”.
Probably, this is the shortest press-conference in Greek coach’s career, his reluctance to communicate with the media is explainable. According to the stats, CSKA spend their worst League’s season. With 1 game left in the regular season they hold 4th place in standings with 7 defeats, it’s never been that many. Even considering post-season CSKA’s biggest number of losses was 7: in 2012/13 season Moscow lost 3 times in regular season and 4 in play-offs.
Loko are third, but Kuban can get higher or get back to the 4th place. It all depends on UNICS game that will take place on April 25 in Kazan.
Who was Loko’s hero against CSKA? It’s hard to say, 4 players were really useful. Kuzminskas became the top scorer (25 points), Nigel Williams-Goss the most efficient player (32 EFF points), Mantas Kalnietis (13+13 assists) and Drew Gordon (16+11 rebounds) had double-doubles.
Avtodor beat PARMA but lose play-off place
Another important game took place in Perm, where the last play-off spot was at stake. PARMA were in easier situation, to get to play-offs they had to not lose with 23+ points differential to Saratov.
However, Avtodor acting head coach Vladislav Konovalov approached the game seriously, saying,”15 Spartans are coming to Perm”. But Perm had their own opinion, in the first quarter they were up by 8:
Even repairing their offense and scoring 28 points in next quarter, Avtodor went on half break as losing team:
🚨 @ristic_dusan ends 2nd Q vs PARMA with buzzer! pic.twitter.com/RqxYbiNVRm
— VTB League (@VTBUL) April 17, 2021
In the third quarter, it seemed like no question left: PARMA took 17-point lead. Then, the guests’ comeback was started by Gian Clavell. The Puerto-Rican guard, who is 6th man of the year candidate, spent his best game for Avtodor: 28 points, 5 assists, 3 steals and amazing 34 efficiency points.
Avtodor managed to save the game win for the first time since late February – 100:93. However, hundred points and Clavell’s performance hardly pleased Saratov, they lacked 16 points at least.
PARMA get in United League play-offs for the first time in history. Ural know their rivals, it is Zenit, regular season champs.
Zenit finish regular season, Nizhny – winning streak
After the winter Nizhny Novgorod were 6th being way behind Zielona Gora and outpacing PARMA by only one victory. Since then, Volga had 6 wins in a row and clinched the top-5 seed.
Zoran Lukic’s team even thought about 4th place, but home defeat against Zenit makes it impossible: Nizhny have to not only win in two games remaining, but beat CSKA in Moscow with 20+ point advantage.
It was a tough one for Zenit: although Arturas Gudaitis and Mateusz Ponitka returned, new regular season champions managed to take comfortable lead only in the fourth against Nizhny.
The game wasn’t high-scoring, Zoran Lukic admitted offensive problems, “Third game in a row we stop Euroleague teams at scoring 70 points in game, that’s a good result. But at the offense we see the regress. We miss lots of open shots, there is one cause, and it is fatigue.”
For Zenit this game was the last in 2020/21 regular season. They couldn’t achieve the best result, 21 wins, all because of a historic loss to Perm. Xavi Pascual’s team lost to PARMA for the first time losing in clutch. By the way, via this Perm felt free and comfortable by the game against Avtodor.
Kalev and Nizhny complicate Khimki’s situation
After unsuccessful February and March Khimki pulled themselves together and had good 3-game winning streak. Front office resolved head coach problem removing “acting” from Andrey Maltsev position.
This April should have brought happiness to team’s fans: Russian specialist as a coach, Timofey Mozgov return, clinching play-offs, winning streak…
Khimki could have taken 6th place, but 2 consecutive defeats spoilt it. First, Khimki lost at home to Nizhny Novgorod. The game was even against one of the hottest spring teams in the United League, but as a result, everything was decided on the last minute: Andrei Vorontsevich was left alone at the perimeter, and Russian forward punished.
2 days later Khimki came to Tallinn to play against Kalev. The Estonians, who won Estonian-Latvian League last week, played for themselves, United League games will be last games for them this season.
It wasn’t a success neither for Andrey Maltsev: from the very beginning Kalev took the lead and even after a failure in the third quarter pulled themselves together quickly. Last quarter was under Tallinn’s control. The victory over Khimki was the first since 2018 and the second in their rivalry history in the League.
Maurice Kemp was the best that night. Forward repeated his season-high scoring 24 points. A half of field goals are dunks!
Kalev have 2 games left, the goal for them is not to lose to Enisey on the road. Otherwise, Tallinn will be outpaced by Krasnoyarsk and keep 11th place.
Khimki’s situation is much more complicated. To take 6th spot, they have to not only outclass Tsmoki and Avtodor on the road, but also hope for Zielona Gora losing to Astana in Nur-Sultan.
Enisey steal last Tsmoki’s opportunity to leave 13th place.
By the way, Enisey want to surpass Kalev in standings. The first step is done: Drazen Anzulovich’s team beat Tsmoki in Minsk. In the first half alone Enisey were up by 27. Guests’ offense was so good and full of ball movement that even Mikhail Kulagin dunked, can anybody remember they’ve seen it last time?
After the big break Tsmoki were close to the biggest comeback in League’s history. In the fourth Minsk reduced the gap from 27 to 9 points, but there were no time left. Fans were satisfied at least with leader’s game, Kris Clyburn scored season-high 26 points and posterized the opponent:
Overall, Tsmoki’s situation isn’t fun: the team can’t leave last place in standings theoretically.
UNCIS stay focused after clinching Euroleague
This week UNICS beat Virtus in EuroCup semi-final series, thus they clinched Euroleague 2020/21.
This success didn’t spoilt Dimitrios Priftis’ players’ heads in the game against Astana. Kazakhstan won the opening quarter, but all they couldn’t stand all the 40 minutes against UNICS. One of the main reasons is head coach Emil Rajkovikj and few leaders’ absence due to positive COVID-19 tests.
Astana can’t make play-offs this season, but they can change the play-offs tree: next week they host Zielona Gora, who desperately need a victory to stay at 6th place.
UNICS have no room for error, any defeat may throw them down to 3rd place, in the worst case they make play-offs from the 4th place.
Team of the week
2 Loko players Mindaugas Kuzminskas and Nigel Williams-Goss made team of the week via their contribution for Kuban’s victory over CSKA.
Maurice Kemp became the best in Kalev vs Khimki game and helped the Estonians beat Moscow for the first time in 3 years.
Gian Clavell spent season-high game and fought till the end to put Avtodor in play-offs.
Finally, Arturas Gudaitis was the most efficient Zenit’s player in their last game in regular season.
Standings
