The main topics of week two.
Zenit beat CSKA on the road for the first time in team’s history.
Shortly before the game of the week it turned out that Zenit got 2 key players injured: Gustavo Ayon will miss at least a week because of a broken nose and Andrei Zubkov will be recovering for about 2 months after thigh injury. Joan Plaza even said that soon he will have to let his assisstants play.
CSKA was favoured to win team and proved it in the first half: Will Clyburn slamed it hard in a fast break, and the team even took a 9-point lead. Zenit didn’t give up so easy – after a halftime break Zenit gained 7-point advantage. Long-range shots became the strongest weapon of Saint Petersburg team – they hit 10 of 19 threes during first 30 minutes! After a tight defence in the final quarter Zenit got first W against CSKA on the road – 82:79.
It was Anton Ponkrashov and Evgeny Voronov who made the difference. They scored 28 points and hit 5 threes combined. By the way, both of them are former CSKA players.
Joan Plaza beat CSKA for the fourth time in 5 VTB League games. He won two games as Zenit head coach and twice with Zalgiris during 2012/13 season. Plaza now has 4 wins against CSKA and that’s the record of the league. Khimki’s head coach Rimas Kurtinaitis is right after him with 3 wins.
This is CSKA franchise-low start of the season in all 11 seasons in the league: for the first time their record is 1-2 after 3 games.
Khimki set show-time in Krasnoyarsk
Enisey’s win against CSKA immediately made them “giant-killers”. Home game against Khimki was expected to be interesting especially considering the fact that Stefan Jovic joined Khimki’s “injury club”.
Luckily for the Khimki’s fans, Alexey Shved and Anthony Gill returned to the roster right in time. Both players played really well and helped beat Enisey. Rimas Kurtinaitis hardly can be satisfied with his team’s defence – their rivals scored 86 points! At the same time, Enisey let Khimki score 106 points – it was their first result above 100.
The game in Krasnoyarsk will be remembered not only for its high score. Guests’ forward Jeremy Evans destroyed rivals’ hoop and became the most spectacular player of the game.
Young forward of Khimki Maxim Barashkov, who spent almost 24 minutes on the court, made an impressive pass to Jonas Jerebko:
“This season it will be tough to play in VTB League”
UNICS barely withstood Astana’s pressure in their first home game of the season. After Kazan’s 10-0 run guests answered back with 14 points in a row and shut UNICS fans down. Errick McСollum (21 points) and Jamar Smith (19 points) still led their team to the first win in the season – American players scored half of their team’s points.
During the post-game press-conference UNICS head coach Dimitrios Priftis said “this season is going to be tough – all teams are very competitive.” Emil Rajkovic added that some foreign rookies will join his team.
By the way, last off-season Basket-Hall was redecorated: display cube and new illumination were placed in the arena and as UNICS frontoffice claims it’s on NBA arenas level.
Sam Dekker has a bright debut in the League
Lokomotiv started its season with the game in Minsk and hardly managed to get a win against updated Tsmoki. Team’s captain Branko Mirkovic had a terrific game, celebrating his birthday (He is now 37): 21 points, 9 assists and 4 of 6 threes, including this last-second shot:
Mirkovic is on of the most aged players in the league and played alomost 38 minutes, but Tsmoki losed the game – 80:88. Lokomotiv’s rookie Sam Dekker collected double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds and became the most efficient player of his team (25 EFF pts), and the most fun to see player as well:
Fan of the week
Nizhny Novgorod and PARMA had a season-high scoring game
This teams’ meetings are traditionally becoming tight games with clutch endings. For instance, last season the game ended only after 2 overtimes. Last Saturday game wasn’t an exception: it became season high in scoring – teams scored 204 points combined!
The most interesting point in this game was former teammates Chavaughn Lewis and Arnett Moultrie playing against each other. Both of them set their career-highs in points in VTB league – 27 and 36 points.
Despite Moultrie’s 43 efficiency points, they didn’t win and PARMA got the second loss in the season.
Kalev beat Nizhny Novgorod on the road for the second year in a row.
Anyway, Nizhny Novgorod’s brilliant start was spoiled by Kalev’s win: team got an 11-point lead and was able to save the lead by the final buzzer despite Nizhny efforts.
For the second season Kalev beat Nizhny Novgorod at their court at the start of the season. Notably that it is only second win against Nizhny Novgorod on the road in the whole matchup history.
Nizhny Novgorod could equalize the score during last possession – with 9 seconds left before the buzzer the hosts were 2 points away from their rivals and were inbounding the ball after a time-out. Brandon Brown shot a three for the win but missed it. During postgame press-conference Zoran Lukic said, that he had showed another combination in time-out, but players had decided to do it their way.
“Trust the Polish process”
Although Zielona Gora lost a season-opener against Khimki, the team looked good, but then Zenit simply destroyed the Polish team. Zielona Gora’s head coach Zan Tabak said that his team expected to be more ambitious. There is even a picture on the net with clear reference:
The process wasn’t long in coming: Last Sunday Zielona Gora beat Avtodor on the road – 89:86. It was a real thriller and stats prove this: 13 lead changes, 12 ties.
In the end of the game the guests were luckier. Avtodor’s guard Markel Starks, former Zielona Gora player, could save his team but missed the three, and few seconds before the buzzer Rayvonte Rice tried to bring the game into overtime but he missed. This is the first W for Zielona Gora this season
Team of the week
Standings
📊 Положение команд после двух недель сезона
📊 Standings after Week #2 pic.twitter.com/jhzjUBcpDy
— VTB United League (@VTBUL) October 9, 2019
