UNICS beat CSKA and for the first time in history became the winners of the VTB United League regular championship
[ad_1]
For the first time in history, Kazan UNICS became the winner of the regular championship of the VTB United League. On Saturday, Velimir Perasovic’s team beat CSKA with a score of 88:78 in the most important championship match at the moment, securing first place in the standings, and also securing home-court advantage in the play-offs. The hero of the match was Nenad Dimitrievich, who scored almost half of all the Kazan team’s points.
UNICS displaced CSKA from first place in the regular championship back in early March. First, only in terms of additional indicators, and then breaking away in terms of the number of victories. Considering that CSKA has often been vulnerable lately, Velimir Perasovic’s team had more than one chance to clear up questions about the regular season winner even before the last round. The problem is that UNICS itself began to make mistakes. The team lost the last three matches, never taking advantage of CSKA’s misfires. And in general, there was a feeling that the rivals seemed to subconsciously not want to reduce everything to an absentee confrontation, but were trying to find out who was better in a head-to-head battle. It took place on Saturday in Kazan.
The winner of this match received the title of regular season champion. The loser had a nervous Sunday, during which he had to watch how Zenit would play against Parma and desperately root for the Permians. After all, a victory for the St. Petersburg team will take them to second place.
The beginning of the match, which CSKA coach Emil Rajkovic called the game of the year so far, was better for the guests. Already in the first quarter, their advantage after Tony Jekiri’s scoring pass reached nine points. At the beginning of the second ten minutes, Melo Trimble and Anton Astapkovich made the Kazan audience nervous. After all, CSKA’s lead has already reached 11 points. This was an excellent bid to keep the confrontation under control. Another time it probably would have worked, but on this day the leader of the Kazan team, Nenad Dimitrievich, decided to demonstrate some fantastic basketball. The plus side was Jalen Reynolds. It was he who scored nine points in a row, starting the chase for CSKA. Well, then Dimitrievich got down to business, and almost everything began to work out for him. Suffice it to say that during the match he converted seven out of nine long-range attempts and eight out of eleven two-point shots.
Emil Rajkovic needed to somehow stop the accelerating opponent, and on the whole he succeeded. CSKA, which was already ten points behind at the moment, returned to the game. But Dimitrievich could no longer be stopped. In the final quarter, he was simply unstoppable and ended up scoring 40 points in the match (a career high). That is almost half of what UNICS earned, winning with a score of 88:78. Plus Dimitrievich has a killer utility coefficient – 52 (also his record). Let’s add that this season of the VTB United League, only Xavier Ratan-Mays scored more points than Dimitrievich – 42 points. But the Yenisei defender threw them into the ring of Parma, which, with all due respect, is still inferior in class to the army team.
Thus, UNICS became the winner of the regular season for the first time in its history (and CSKA did not win for the first time). Let us remind you that Kazan are also the current league champions, so it turns out that UNICS holds both titles for some time. Well, the army team, as already mentioned, will find out what place they took on Sunday evening, after the Zenit-Parma match.
[ad_2]
Source link