Zenit defeated Parma at home, 101-72 (28-11, 19-17, 29-28, 25-16).
Top Scorers
Zenit: Janis Timma (17), Ryan Toolson (16), Demonte Harper (16+5 ast), Kyle Landry (14)
Parma: Ivan Nelyubov (13+6 reb), Maksim Dybovskii (12), Sasa Zagorac (11+7 reb), Ivan Ukhov (10+5 reb), Jordan Callahan (10)
Turning Point
Janis Timma took the court for the first time since February 25, giving Zenit a healthy, balanced roster, something the club has struggled with all season.
Despite starting on the bench, Timma finished the opening period with five points, helping Zenit to a massive 28-11 lead.
The home team would go on to lead by 19 points at halftime and never looked back, cruising to a 29-point win and 101 points.
Timma impressed from start to finish in his return, scoring a team-high 17 points in 28 minutes. Beyond the Latvian forward’s encouraging stats, Zenit went 12-deep in the blowout win, while shooting 50% from the field and 85% at the line.
Zenit improves to 17-3, one behind 1st-place CSKA with four games remaining. Parma drops to 0-18 with six more chances to get that elusive first win.
Stat
27 – St. Petersburg put on a clinic of team basketball, dishing out 27 assists, led by Artem Vikhrov’s seven.
Quotes
Zenit head coach Vasily Karasev:
– The important thing is that we won today. We played well on defense at times and had some interesting offense. Obviously, when you are up 20-30 points, it’s tough to give 100%, no matter what we tried to tell the players. It’s good we could use a big rotation. We let everyone get into the game because our next game against Lokomotiv is very important for us.
Parma head coach Viacheslav Shushakov:
– We knew Zenit’s strengths. We knew that who did most of the scoring, but we let Karasev and Toolson get in a rhythm from the start. We were shooting 56% from the line and 1-9 from downtown after the first half. If we can hit at least 50% of our open shots, we play a totally different game. Otherwise, we start to lose focus on defense. Zenit deserved to be the better team today.
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Up Next
Zenit: March 25 at Lokomotiv-Kuban
Parma: March 26 vs. Nizhny Novgorod
