CSKA beat Samara in their first regular season game – 85:72 (25:16, 26:13, 21:24, 13:19).
The best scorers
Samara: James Ennis (22 + 8 rebounds), Marcos Knight (16).
CSKA: Alexey Shved (20 + 5 assists), Nikola Milutinov (16 + 5 rebounds), Dejan Davidovac (15 + 12 rebounds), Livio Jean-Charles (6 + 8 rebounds).
Game progress
Samara made its debut in the VTB United League with a game against the second team of last season CSKA. In the offseason, Samara had a great transfer campaign, while head coach Sergey Bazarevich asked experts and fans not to make overly optimistic forecasts. The Samara team started the game against the Moscow team well and tried to follow Davidovac – Milutinov duo rythm.
And the coach’s fears were confirmed already in the starting quarter: the hosts lacked teamwork and chemistry, a player who could take the control, as well as shot accuracy. If at the end of 10 minutes the difference was uncritical 9 points, then in the second quarter the stands went quiet. After 7 minutes of the second quarter, Samara scored only 4 points with 8 of 25 from the game (32%) and 0 of 5 from three-point line. The Army team was on fire. Without applying any extra effort and using their roster increased the lead. Alexey Shved was good, Ivan Ukhov successfully support his rythm. CSKA controlled the rebound (24-14), moved the ball well (11-5 on assists) and had 52.8% from the game – 51:29 at the halftime.
In the third quarter Marcos Knight and James Ennis helped Samara to improve offense and leveled the game, but the hosts did not have enough for more. CSKA with Shved played good and had a 19-point lead before the start of the fourth quarter. The last 10 minutes became a formality – CSKA controlled the game and got the win.
Hero
Dejan Davidovac. The Serbian forward played very effectively in his first VTB League game. Davidovac got 15 points, 12 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal and 1 block with 6 of 7 from the game and 28 eff. points in just 20 minutes on the floor.
Numbers
36 points were made by Shved and Milutinov (11 of 21 from the game). Their duo is still the problem of the Army team opponents.
Comments
Sergey Bazarevich, Samara Head Coach:
– We gave unfounded hopes, and we believed that if we did not win, it would be a close game. And the people who came to the game today also reacted the same way. I always say: on paper we have a good squad, but we need time and work. Thanks to everyone who came — I hope they will continue to do it. Unfortunately, we didn’t give the fans many reasons to get involved and support us to get back into the game. There are a lot of reasons, but you can’t fool the process. In your dreams, you can imagine yourself the VTB League winner only by entering the League and signing good players – but…
I will appeal to the fans: continue to support us. We will try, but everyone should understand that there are no miracles. We still have to work out the chemistry, work out the spirit, work out the roles of the players… This is partially done in the preseason, but there are objective reasons why it has not been possible yet. There are also subjective ones: some burned out, they wanted to play against CSKA too much.
Emil Rajkovic, CSKA Head Coach:
– First of all, I congratulate Samara on the VTB League debut. There was a great atmosphere, here is a beautiful city that deserves to see high-level basketball. The hosts have a very good team and coach, they will have a lot of great games here and in other cities, wins will come. As for the game, our team has a lot of experience, including playing in difficult situations. We played well, controlled the game. In the end, we lost a confidence, made a few mistakes and talked about it in the locker room – in more difficult games, such mistakes will worth a lot.
What’s next
Samara: road game versus Lokomotiv Kuban on October 8
CSKA: Ohome game against MINSK on October 8
