UNICS is saved in Krasnoyarsk in overtime, Faried makes his debut in CSKA, Volkhin has the best game in his career. Week results

UNICS is saved in Krasnoyarsk in overtime, Faried makes his debut in CSKA, Volkhin has the best game in his career. Week results

The game week in the United League gave a lot of memorable moments.

Lorenzo Brown saves UNICS from sensational defeat in Krasnoyarsk

Initially, the game between Enisey and UNICS did not portend a serious intrigue: Kazan won 12 out of 15 games in the rivalry history, and this year they seriously strengthened for the Euroleague, while the Krasnoyarsk team did not qualify for the FIBA Europe Cup.

However, Enisey had an advantage – it was the presence of forces. The Siberians have been preparing for this game all week, for UNICS the game in Krasnoyarsk was the 3rd in 6 days, not to mention the long flight from Istanbul.

UNICS, as expected, did not force the pace and tried to save energy. But this did not prevent the hosts from taking the lead already in the second quarter and breaking away by +7.

During the game, Enisey led for a long time in the last 10 minutes, but failed to keep the advantage. UNICS equalized in the end, and Mario Hezonja even ttried to finish the game with the buzzer beater, but did not score.

Overtime became Lorenzo Brown’s time. The guard scored 8 out of 13 team points, becoming the only UNICS player who scored in the extra 5 minutes not from the free-throw line. And it was on Brown’s  key three-pointer  6 seconds before the end:

Enisey failed to recoup, stopping a step away from a resounding win. The Siberians’ head coach Drazen Anzulovic was also disappointed with the result of the game: “In the last five minutes we lost control, lost the rebound, there were too many individual actions, often absolutely unjustified, that’s why we lost the advantage. We can only be upset because we missed the opportunity to beat a very high quality team.”

In addition to the Lorenzo Brown performance, it is worth highlighting Mario Hezonja game, who scored 28 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 steals. In total , Brown and Hezonja brought the team 49 points:

Igor Volkhin updates personal bests, Zenit wins in Krasnodar for the first time in 2 years

The most interesting promised to be the game in Krasnodar, where Loko hosted Zenit. But already in the third quarter, the St. Petersburg team created a 14-point advantage, and in the end they won with an unexpectedly large lead – 106:79.

But there were also interesting moments in this game. For example, 23-year-old Zenit forward Igor Volkhin played his best game in his career: he came off the bench, scored a record 21 points with 7/10 from the field. It was with Volkhin’s three-point shot that the guests began the decisive run in the 3rd quarter, and Zenit forward Sergey Karasev confirmed this: “Loko managed to draw the game, but then Igor Volkhin said his word. His shots were a turning point.”

Zenit terminated the trend of performances in Krasnodar and beat Loko for the first time since May 2019. Also, this hundred was the first in the season for the St. Petersburg team.

Faried debuts, CSKA continues winning streak

Like UNICS, CSKA held an away game in the United League after a double week in the Euroleague. The Army team also took their time with the draw, but at the same time demonstrated first-class defense: for example, in the second quarter, PARMA could not score points for more than 6 minutes!

However, gradually the Perm Krai team played out and pleased their fans with beautiful highlights. Marcel Ponitka and Nikolai Zhmako effectively covered their rivals with blocks:

And Adas Juskevicius alley-oop on Artem Zabelin became one of the best moments of the week:

But PARMA failed to take advantage of the difficult schedule of the Army team. As a result, the Ural team failed to score more than 60 points in the League for the third time in its history. For CSKA, this win in Perm was the fourth in a row in the season – the current champion is still going undefeated.

Kenneth Faried made his European debut in the game against PARMA – the forward played his first game for CSKA, but did not show any bright moments, leaving the court with 3 rebounds and 1 steal. Dimitris Itoudis, found an explanation for this: “We are trying to bring Kenneth Faried into the game, he spent only one training session with us. He needed the game practice he got today.”

Kalev’s first win happened in Nizhny Novgorod

Kalev went to visit NN with 3 defeats in the standings. But if the failure with Zenit was predictable and to the point, then in games with Avtodor and Enisey, Tallinn could have won if they had acted a little more successfully in the endings.

But all unsuccessful series come to an end sometime. In the game with Nizhny Novgorod, Kalev was in the lead for a long time, at some point broke away by +12 and opened the wins count in the new season. The Volga team attempted a comeback in the 4th quarter, but Silas Melson put a spectacular dot in the game:

Kalev allowed the opponent to score only 65 points – this is one of the best defensive results of the Tallinn team in recent seasons. However, there is an explanation for this – Nizhny Novgorod played without one of its leaders Anton Astapkovich, who broke his arm. Evgeniy Baburin also out for several months.

Astana rises to the Top-3

The Kazakh team carried out a serious restructuring in the summer, updating the squad and changing the head coach. And so far, Serbian mentor Darko Russo is pleasantly surprised by the results: Astana beat Zenit on road, lost only 3 points to Nizhny Novgorod and got a confident win over Zielona Gora.

Moreover, in the game with the Poles, Astana got lead from the first minutes until the final buzzer, and during the game the difference in the score reached 22 points! Astana have already risen to 3rd place in the table, overtaking both Zenit and Loko.

And even after such a confident game with Zielona Gora, Darko Russo was dissatisfied: “To be honest, I am not 100 percent satisfied. Because the game was full of ups and downs. There were good and bad moments. We have to be much faster on offense, make quick decisions.”

Astana played with a wide rotation – 9 players got more than 10 minutes of playing time on the court at once. But it’s worth highlighting a couple of leaders: Jaylen Barford and Anthony Hickey scored a total of 48 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists and 5 steals.

Avtodor is confirmed as the best attacking team of the season

The Saratov team do not change their style even after the  head coach arrival, who preaches defensive basketball. Avtodor still prefers to play fast and effectively, constantly delighting fans with spectacular alley-oops and dunks.

The game versus Tsmoki was held in a similar way, only no less effective defense was added to the effective offence. Avtodor raced off to +17 by the end of the 1st quarter, scored 49 for the half and stopped in two accurate shots from the first hundred of the season. Moreover, Emil Rajkovic distributed the playing time quite competently – none of his players spent more than 24 minutes on the court. It was difficult to single out the leader on the floor: 5 players scored 10 or more points at once.

For the third time in three games, Avtodor scores at least 95 points to its opponents. On average, Saratov players score 95.7 points per game – and now this is the best result in the 2021/22 season.

Team of the Week

Lorenzo Brown literally saved UNICS in overtime with Enisey and made a decisive three-pointer.
Jaylen Barford scored 24 points in the game against Zielona Gora and retained the status of the best scorer of the League.
Igor Volkhin played the best game in his career and helped Zenit beat Loko on road.
The best game turned out for Kregor Hermet: Kalev forward became the most useful in the game against Nizhny Novgorod.
And Joel Bolomboy was the most effective among all CSKA players in the game versus PARMA.

Top-10

There were too many highlights this week – the best of the best got into the Top 10:

Standings

Astana rises to the Top 3, Avtodor returns to the playoff zone, CSKA and UNICS are still in the lead.