Zenit beat Nizhny Novgorod on the road – 70:62 (12:14, 19:16, 22:13, 17:19).
Top scorers
Nizhny Novgorod: Sergey Toropov (19+6 rebounds), Kasey Shepherd (16), Andrei Votontsevich (11+5 rebounds), Ivan Strebkov (10)
Zenit: Arturas Gudaitis (14), Mateusz Ponitka (13+5 rebounds)
Story
With this game Zenit closed out their winning streak of the regular season. Nizhny Novgorod still has games against Kalev and CSKA. They still have a theoretical chance to break into the top four (especially given CSKA’s loss to Loko).
The first quarter was like a warm up: The teams looked closely at one another, trying not to force the game. The opponents scored only 10 points for both teams in the first five minutes. A three-pointer by Mateusz Ponitka gave the visitors the lead, but by the end of the quarter Nizhny took over thanks to a shot by Artem Komolov – 14:12 in favor of the home team.
Zenit began the second 10 minutes with a 7:0 run, highlighted by Denis Zakharov. But Kasey Shepherd hit two three-pointers in a row to help his team stabilize. Ponitka made five straight points to give Zenit a +4 lead, but the home team pulled ahead and the game was a seesaw for the rest of the half. The visitors went into the break as the leaders, but their lead was minimal, 31:30.
The third quarter also began with a struggle, but two straight three-pointers by Austin Hollins and a six-pointer by Tarik Black made Zenit’s lead double digits – 53-43 by the end of the quarter. Dmitry Khvostov had another effective streak, scoring 7 points to start the final quarter. Despite the outstanding play of Sergey Toropov, who had the most effective game of his career (Toropov scored 15 of his team’s 19 points in one quarter), Zenit held a comfortable lead through the end of the quarter and ended the 20-20/21 regular season on a positive note. Nizhny Novgorod’s six-game winning streak came to an end, however.
Hero
Mateusz Ponitka. Zenit’s captain was everywhere, and made an impressive collection of 13 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals in 18 minutes.
Stat
6 – that’s how many consecutive wins Nizhny Novgorod had had before the game with their St. Petersburg rival.
Comments
Nizhny Novgorod head coach Zoran Lukic:
– First of all I want to congratulate our opponent for a well-deserved win. Their rotation allowed them to rest a number of players from the last game and today they looked fresh. They have this opportunity, which shows the quality of the work process at the club.
As for us, for the third game in a row we stopped a serious opponent of Euroleague level on defense at the 70-point mark, and that’s a good result. But on offense we can see the decline. We are missing a lot of open shots and the only reason for that is fatigue. Unfortunately, it happens that way and there is nothing we can do to improve it, because it is game after game. Now we are starting to prepare for our next opponent – Kalev.
Zenit head coach Xavi Pascual:
– First of all, I’d like to wish Nizhny Novgorod and its head coach Zoran Lukic, whom I consider one of the best in the VTB United League, the best of luck at the end of the season. We played today against a team that’s equally good on both ends of the court, aggressive on defense and good at moving the ball. As for us, I can’t say we played flawless, but we took it seriously. In the third quarter we were able to rebuild a little bit and took the lead, which was the turning point of the game.
Next
Nizhny Novgorod: April 21 @ Kalev
Zenit: –
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