Zenit St. Petersburg defeated PARMA Perm on the road, 107-78 (24-23, 25-15, 25-21, 33-19).
Top Scorers
PARMA: Eigirdas Zukauskas (24), Rashard Kelly (17 + 9 reb)
Zenit: Codi Miller-McIntyre (16 + 7 ast), Gal Mekel (15 + 10 ast), Jalen Reynolds (14 + 8 reb), Philip Scrubb (11 + 6 ast)
Story
Zenit picked up a big road win vs. PARMA, snapping a three-game skid to move above .500 on the season.
The victory was Joan Plaza’s first in the VTB United League since taking over in St. Petersburg as his team demonstrated remarkable balance in shredding PARMA’s defense.
The visitors had eight players in double digits, led by the backcourt of Codi Miller-McIntyre and Gal Mekel, who combined for 31 points on 67% shooting and 17 assists.
Miller-McIntyre was making his first return to Perm after a sensational campaign with the Ural club last season, while Mekel recorded his first double-double since returning from injury (15 pts, 10 ast).
The home team was paced by a game-high 24 from Eigirdas Zukauskas, but failed to solve Zenit’s offense, giving up at least 24 points in each quarter.
Despite the lopsided final score, PARMA only trailed by seven with less than three minutes to go in the 3rd quarter, 61-54. But a 7-0 run from the visitors pushed the deficit to 14 and Zenit never looked back.
Leading by 15 at the end of the period, St. Petersburg went on to score 33 in the 4th, and ice an impressive win away from home, only the team’s second of the season.
Zenit is now 6-5 in 6th place. PARMA falls to 3-8 and 11th place.
Stat
13 – Zenit knocked down 13 triples at a 45% clip. It’s tough to lose with those numbers.
Quotes
PARMA head coach Nikolajs Mazurs: “I want to apologize to the fans. We did not play our best today and we had a lot of things not work for us. It’s hard to say why we missed so many open shots. We should have made them. The guys executed the way they were supposed to. We scored our average–78 points–but I think we should have been more aggressive on defense. We could have had more steals and rebounds, which would have slowed our opponent’s attack.”
Zenit head coach Joan Plaza: “First of all, I want to say I’m happy to return to Perm! It’s been 10 years since I was here with my team. As for the game, I think we deserved to win. We won each of the quarters, which indicates we played smart and confident the entire game. The stats speak for themselves. Eight players scored more than 10 points. That means we played cohesively, like a well-oiled machine, unlike previous games. Of course, there are a lot of things we need to work on, but we are on the right track.”
Photos
