CSKA beat Zenit away in the regular season of the VTB United League
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In the central match, perhaps throughout October, in the regular championship of the VTB United League, Zenit hosted CSKA. The St. Petersburg team, who started the season with a slippage, really wanted to please their audience with their first home victory, but they didn’t show any quality team play. And the efforts of Tom Ertel alone, who played an excellent match, were not enough to beat CSKA. The army team won with a score of 80:76 and continued their winning streak, which now stands at three matches.
Zenit entered the new season, clearly showing that it intended to regain the championship title, which Javi Pascual’s team lost last season (Zenit, the 2022 champion, was left without medals at all, losing in the series for third place to CSKA) . The St. Petersburg team had a very bright performance in the League Super Cup at the end of September (in the final they were stronger than Lokomotiv-Kuban), presenting themselves to the public with a surprisingly well-played team for the preseason, moreover, equipped with such masters as Thomas Ertel and who returned after five years in “ Barcelona” Kyle Kuric. However, in the very first round of the regular season, the St. Petersburgers, contrary to their intentions, became co-authors of a sensation – they lost to the league debutant Uralmash, and at home too. Then there was a difficult victory over Samara, and so difficult that it was time to say that Zenit’s readiness was clearly overestimated. But CSKA, for the first time, perhaps in its history, entered the championship without the status of an obvious favorite (after all, the departure of such stars as Nikola Milutinov and Alexey Shved is not easy to compensate for), played, perhaps not as brightly as they were used to fans, but reliably, winning both opening matches (against MBA and Enisey), relying primarily on defense.
So in the confrontation with Zenit, Emil Rajkovic’s charges were not looking for any breathtaking beauty on the court. Some would even call CSKA’s game somewhat simplified. But it was reliable and effective. After all, the seemingly textbook combinations that the army team used consistently brought them under the Zenit ring. And there was already someone working out the moment. It could be Tony Jekiri (he has only eight points, but also 11 rebounds), or Amat Mbaye, or Samson Ruzhentsev. That is, the army men did not have any signs of, let’s say, “leadership.” The team worked exactly like a team.
But what Zenit lacked was team play. The same Kuric, who knows how to play the game perfectly, was simply invisible. Vince Hunter, another important acquisition of Zenit in the offseason, played excellent defense several times, looked good in attack, but often fell out of the game, Trent Fraser was carried away by some very sophisticated options and ended up recording as many as three losses per match . One got the feeling that Pascual somehow failed to convey to his players that the match had already begun, that this was not a warm-up. As a result, CSKA first formed a five-point lead, then a seven-point lead, then a nine-point lead. After a long break, the army team’s advantage was already in double digits. Everything could have been worse, but to the delight of Zenit, the army team also had its own player, who was drawn into the match for a long time, and the key one was Casper Ware.
Fortunately, the game did not become one of those that you can no longer watch long before the final siren. All thanks to Tom Ertel. The Frenchman gave a great match. It was he who, at the beginning of the second half, made a breakthrough that brought Zenit back into attack range and forced Raikovich to urgently take a time out. It was he who responded to the attacks of Ware, who suddenly woke up. It was he who distributed passes, still finding gaps in CSKA’s surprisingly dense and fast defense. In total, Ertel had 27 points (the best figure in the match), eight assists and four rebounds. And if his teammates had helped him a little more, if Boyan Dubljevic had not thrown balls into the milk at important moments, Zenit could have even pulled out this game. After all, less than a minute and a half before the siren, after free throws by Ertel, only three points remained from CSKA’s advantage. But the hosts were no longer able to take another step. Later, Javi Pascual will complain that everything was decided by “one missed open shot, one wrong choice of position, one rebound, one foul…”. But be that as it may, the guests also worked the decisive period very competently.
As a result, CSKA won with a score of 80:76 and can already boast of a series of three victories.
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