Zenit beat Nizhny Novgorod at home – 78:73 (17:25, 22:17, 25:13, 14:18).
Top scorers
Zenit: Will Thomas (24 + 8 rebounds), Arturas Gudaitis (14), Kevin Pangos (12 + 9 assists).
Nizhny Novgorod: Kasey Shepherd (13 + 5 assists), Evgenii Baburin (13), Aleksandr Gankevich (12 + 5 rebounds), Luke Petrasek (11 + 10 rebounds).
Story
Zenit (12-1) had 5-game winning streak in the League. Nizhny Novgorod (6-5) took 6th place after 4 consecutive defeats. Petersburg played against Loko only 48 hours ago. That game Zenit shooters were on fire – 7 threes in 10 minutes. This time Zenit suffered from it: Nizhny hit 5 long-range shots in the starting quarter and led 25:17.
Александр Ганькевич вместе с @BC_NN улетает на «+12» в Санкт-Петербурге! pic.twitter.com/YaQ1lAgIQR
— VTB League (@VTBUL) February 2, 2021
After another Evgenii Baburin three Nizhny took the biggest lead of the game – 31:19. But in the middle of the second quarter Petersburg managed to get back to the game, hosts’ sharpshooters were on fire. Vitaly Fridzon, Kevin Pangos and Will Thomas threes evened the game. By the half time the score was 42:39 in guests’ favor.
The third quarter was Will Thomas’ finest hour. The American scored 14 points, 8 of them in 1 minute. Inspired teammates supported forward with tight defensive period: 13:0 run let hosts gain 9-point lead before the final quarter – 64:55.
🔥 Will Thomas scores 8 points in a row, @zenitbasket runs 13-0 in 3rd Q! pic.twitter.com/rSOpXQd86l
— VTB League (@VTBUL) February 2, 2021
Key moment
Zenit allowed opponents to score only 4 points in first 5 quarter minutes controlling the game via tight defense and slow pace. NN hope for a comeback appeared with 1,5 minutes before the buzzer when Kasey Shepherd shortened the gap to single digits – 68:76. In the next possession Petersburg missed three times making 2 offensive rebounds. They didn’t score in that possession but it was key as the guests had no time to recover.
Zenit outclassed Nizhny Novgorod for the first time since January 13, 2019 and settled on the first place.
Hero
Will Thomas. Forward collected perfect statline. Thomas hit 9 from 13 from the field in 30 minutes scoring 24 points, 8 rebounds and 2 steals. His basketball helped Zenit take over the game in the third.
Stat
17 – number of Zenit offensive rebounds. It helped Xavi Pascual team score 15 second chance points.
Comments
Zenit head coach Xavi Pascual:
– Firstly, we are satisfied with the victory. It was hard mentally and physically to approach the game against Nizhny after lots of game, against Barcelona, Milan and Lokomotiv-Kuban. It was obvious tonight. I want to congratulate Nizhny Novgorod, in the first 20 minutes they were better, had sharp offense and we lacked intensity in defense. In the second half we came back to the game changing the situation step by step. On last minutes we managed to play with advantage and finish the game with a W.
Nizhny Novgorod head coach Zoran Lukic:
– Congratulations to Zenit, in the second half they took the win. Unfortunately, we lost control over the game after the half time, we couldn’t answer. I think it caused tonight’s loss. I’d like to say that Nizhny Novgorod showed better basketball compared to previous games.
Next
Zenit: February 7 @ Tsmoki-Minsk
Nizhny Novgorod: February 7 @ Zielona Gora
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