UNICS Kazan defeated Enisey Krasnoyarsk on the road, 99-78 (24-17, 27-24, 23-18, 25-19).
Top Scorers
Enisey: John Roberson (16), DeAngelo Harrison (15 + 8 reb), Martins Meiers (14)
UNICS: Maurice Ndour (17), Trent Lockett (13), Errick McCollum (13), Anton Ponkrashov (13)
Story
Kazan relied on balancing scoring and quality three-point shooting (10-21) to take down Enisey easily on the road.
Eight different players scored at least eight points for the visitors, led by Maurice Ndour’s 17, as UNICS outscored the home team in each of the four quarters.
Dimitris Priftis’ men seized control early in the 2nd quarter. Leading 32-29, UNICS went on a 14-2 run to grab a 15-point lead, 46-31. Anton Ponkrashov did the bulk of the damage, draining three triples in the span of three minutes.
Enisey never got closer than 10 points the rest of the way, let down by shaky outside shooting (5-19) and a -10 on the glass (38-28).
John Roberson led the home team with 16 on 6-9 shooting.
The victory keeps UNICS in 3rd place, 5-1, one game behind CSKA and Khimki. Enisey falls to 2-5 and 12th place.
Stat
99 – UNICS set a new season high for points. The Tatar club had not scored more than 89 points before Saturday.
Quotes
Enisey head coach Oleg Okulov: “First of all, I want to say that our opponent’s talent level probably had something of an effect. We have some difficulties right now: Several players are not playing the type of basketball we want. We were depending on these players. We made mistakes today and could have played better, in my opinion. There could have been fewer strategic, in-game mistakes. We came up a little short in each component, even though it’s tough to complain about the effort. Thanks to the difference in skill, we weren’t able to score in certain moments, whereas UNICS shot a high percentage.”
UNICS head coach Dimitris Priftis: “First of all, we came here with a lot of respect for Enisey, as a team with a good roster. Enisey has two wins and they’ve already played CSKA, Zenit and Khimki, while still managing to get some wins. My players controlled the game for the entire 40 minutes today. Congratulations to them on the win. I wish the best to Enisey.”
