Super offensive Loko, defensive UNICS and growing Mikhailovskii. United League week in review

Super offensive Loko, defensive UNICS and growing Mikhailovskii. United League week in review

Week of records and heroes in the United League.

Mikhailovskii leads Avtodor to 2 victories in a week

Avtodor confidently took off this week. In the beginning of the season Saratov lost badly to PARMA and CSKA but during 2-week pause without games they managed to reload and take 2 victories in a row.

At first, Avtodor outclassed Astana and did it confidently. Kazakhstan arrived in Saratov after a big win over Khimki and were front-runners. However, already in the first quarter Avtodor were leading double-digits and repeated single quarter scoring high:

As a result, Avtodor took the first win in the season and set new season scoring-high – 107 points.

4 days later Khimki came to Saratov, their roster started improving: in addition to Alexey Shved and Janis Timma, Greg Monroe and Sergey Karasev recovered, Errick McCollum was ready to debut.

In the first half Saratov were fighting back but in the third quarter fell 14 points behind Khimki as Jordan Mickey and Greg Monroe were on fire in paint.

Nevertheless, in the last quarter Avtodor came back and tied the game forcing clutch ending. In last 2 minutes each team had chances to win the game, but the hosts were luckier:

Nikita Mikhailovskii became the hero of the ending: 20 years old Avtodor guard drained 2 important contested threes over Jonas Jerebko and Janis Timma. The last Mikhailovskii long-range bomb was game-winning:

By the way, Nikita Mikhailovskii proved himself in the game vs Astana as well, the guard who scored 21 points lacked only 1 shot to set new career-high. Now, Mikhailovskii is second best scorer on Avtodor’s roster with 14.8 points per game, and for now this is his career-high stats in 4 years in the League.

Shved has another historic achievement

During the game vs Avtodor Alexey Shved reached 3000 career points in the United League becoming the best scorer in League’s history. It took 158 games for Khimki’s guard.

Loko score season-high 114 points

Avtodor set scoring season-high on Thursday and on Sunday Loko beat it again. In the game against Zielona Gora Kuban scored 114 points – this is franchise-high repeat. It was 10th time in the United League when Loko scored 100+ points in a game.

However, Zielona Gora looked good, the Polish team were leading by the half time break ignoring guests’ defense. Lokomotiv-Kuban head coach Evgeny Pashutin noted it after the game highlighting that “usually his team allow 51 points in 40 minutes, not in 20”. Janis Berzins and Marcel Ponitka made week best highlight play:

In the second half Zielona Gora offense still was efficient but no energy left to protect the rim. Loko scored incredible 64 points after the half time break and Alan Williams was Krasnodar’s leader, the center set career-high (34 points) and made 3rd double-double in 4 season games:

This week was full of records, another one was set by Mantas Kalnietis. Loko guard gave out 17 assists, that is career and franchise high in the United League. Obviously, 17 assists is a season-high and 4th best result in 11-years tournament history.

 

UNICS show signature defense

In comparison with offense fest in Saratov and Zielona Gora the game in Kazan was opposite. UNICS managed to beat Enisey and allowed them to score only 64 points.

However, in the first quarter the teams pleased fans with 11 accurate three-pointers:

UNICS managed to maintain their offense while Enisey did not, as a result they scored only 64 points, Kazan defense that game is second best result in the season among all teams.

Standings

Week Highlights