Zenit ouplayed Tsmoki-Minsk at home – 104:73 (24:23, 32:15, 23:17, 25:18).
Top scorers
Zenit: Austin Hollins (17), Kevin Pangos (14+8 assists), Arturas Gudaitis (14), Anton Pushkov (13), Billy Baron (10)
Tsmoki-Minsk: Kris Clyburn (18), Robert Lowery (17+6 assists), Maksim Salash (17+6 rebounds), Yauheni Beliankou (12)
Story
Zenit sit at the top of the table with 3/3 victories and they must’ve planned to extend the streak in front of their home stands. However, Minsk demonstrated their fighting attitude straight away and took the lead. The hosts came forward in the end of the first quarter, but the Dragons maintained only 1-point gap.
And still, the next quarter belonged to Zenit. The guests took the lead after and one by Maksim Salash, but Zenit had a solid response. Two three-pointers of Kevin Pangos, matching and one by Austin Hollins and Andrey Zubkov’s dunk made 12:0 run for the hosts. The Dragons got knocked down and Zenit extended the lead to +18 and 56:38 in halftime.
Zenit controlled the game in the second half and when the end of the game was near, there was only one question left. Can Saint Petersburg set season high scoring game? Current best is 101 from UNICS. Moments before the end, Vladislav Trushkin scored 102nd point for the team and Anton Pushkov finalized the result. 104:73 and Zenit keep on winning streak.
Hero
Kevin Pangos. With 21 minutes only, the Canadian stopped near double-double (14+8 assists), and along with Austin Hollins became the best player of his team in efficiency (19) and +/- (+22).
Stat
104 points, new season high in 2020/21 edition of VTB league.
Comment
Zenit head coach Xavi Pascual:
“Thanks to fans for sharing this win with us. I’d like to note that all team did a great job tonight. We were flawless in both defense and offense. Our game tonight was integral and we executed the whole plan. We have to be happy. We’ve at all arenas so far, and that is very pleasing.”
Tsmoki-Minsk head coach Rostislav Vergun:
We didn’t manage to baffle the opponents’ strengths. Zenit totally deserved their advantage. There are many factors to our loss. The opposition were more aggressive, they made us foul. Considering the lack of one of our key players; all these combined created tonight’s result. They used their strengths and our weaknesses.”
Next
Zenit: October 19 at CSKA
Tsmoki-Minsk: October 9 at UNICS
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