CSKA interrupted the St. Petersburg series – Newspaper Kommersant No. 204 (7405) dated 11/02/2022
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In the central match of the game week, the reigning champion and vice-champion of the league, Zenit and CSKA, met. Luckier were the army team, who won with a score of 85:80 and retained their leadership in the championship.
Last year’s league play-off final series brought the already quite principled confrontation between Zenit and CSKA to an even higher level. That final stretched over seven matches. The scales, after long hesitation, still leaned in favor of Zenit, who managed to recoup from the score 1:3. That is, the Petersburgers inflicted three defeats on CSKA in a row, which in itself is a huge achievement. And already in the current season “Zenith” twice more beat army team – in the finals of the Kondrashin and Belov Cup and the VTB United League Super Cup. That is, on the account of “Zenith” a five-match winning streak was formed in confrontations with the army team. Of course, Javi Pascual’s wards wanted to extend this series. And also, of course, CSKA, under the control of Emil Rajkovic, tried to stop the series of misfires in the confrontation with Zenit.
Zenit and CSKA approached the next round of confrontation in approximately the same condition. But CSKA, if approached purely formally, looked a little better.
After all, the army team won all six matches, while Zenit lost one suffered – from UNICS in the first round. Plus, the Petersburgers faced injuries to important players: center Artem Klimenko and forward Andrei Zubkov. So Zenit had to urgently return 39-year-old Sergei Monya (he spent last season just in St. Petersburg). CSKA also had losses – Semyon Antonov was out of action for a long time. Yes, and the statistics of the army team should not be overestimated, they did not intersect with top rivals. Not surprisingly, Rajkovic remarked before the match that “this game will let us know if we are really good.”
The first minutes of the match showed that Rajkovic had little reason to doubt the strength of his team.
The army team did not impress the hosts with anything original. They held the defense tightly, actively loaded the balls on Nikola Milutinov in attack. That is, they did what was expected of them.
But Zenit had no opposition to this. Under the shield, the Petersburgers almost did not go, and when they nevertheless decided on this, they ran into a forest of army players. Well, an attempt to break this super-dense defense with long-range throws did not work. Three-pointers and Sergey Karasev, and Tom Ertel, and Caleb Homesley were rare. And the army team and Milutinov hit, and Alexei Shved, although he was cut off from field goals, actively handed out passes, and Anton Astapkovich somehow very quickly chalked up 10 points to his account.
Javi Pascual went on a rampage, tried to cheer up his team, but its gap kept increasing, and Zenit left for the big break with a deficit of 14 points. This is a lot, and in the confrontation with CSKA – a lot is catastrophic. But the hosts, who were driven forward by crowded stands (all tickets for the seven thousandth SIBUR Arena were sold), stubbornly, through pain, squeezed through the defensive formations of the army team and tried to return to the game. The team was led by Dmitry Kulagin and Thomas Ertel, but they were often deprived of the full support of their partners. But CSKA, having slightly rolled back (to the line of advantage in the region of 10 points), without giving up the pleasure of using Milutinov, more and more often played through their jokers – Casper Weir and Dallas Moore. Army “small” with their quick attacks compensated for the limited success achieved by the guests on the courage. It seemed that CSKA would have no particular difficulties in bringing the match to victory. But they arose, and suddenly. A minute and a half before the end of the match, the army team led “plus 8” and possessed the ball. But at first, Ware unsuccessfully simulated a foul on himself, for which he himself received a technical foul, and then CSKA lost the ball twice, which ended with Zenit’s quick and effective breaks. As a result, under the roar of the stands of Tom Ertel, with a long-range throw, he reduced the backlog of Zenit to two points. And there were still almost 40 seconds left to play.
And yet the soldiers held out. They won with a score of 85:80 and kept the lead.
With seven victories in the asset goes UNICS (Kazan beat Avtodor on Tuesday with a score of 95:76), but it lags behind in additional indicators.
Tom Ertel expelled from France squad
Zenit defender Thomas Ertel has been suspended from the French national team. This was stated by the President of the French Basketball Federation (FFBB) Jean-Pierre Siyuta, whose words are quoted by the French edition of L’Equipe on Tuesday.
Ertel signed with Zenit on 21 September. The basketball player spent last season in Madrid “Real”, with which he became the winner of the championship of Spain. In early August, Ertel signed a special agreement obliging him not to move to a Russian or Belarusian club.
“It’s all over,” Mr. Siyuta said. “We can discuss those who have already played in Russia, who have not signed the agreement, but as for Tom, he did not fulfill his obligation. Today, I believe that he will no longer be in the French national team.
Tom Ertel is 33 years old. Previously, he played for the French Po-Orthez, ASVEL and Strasbourg, the Spanish Alicante, Barcelona and the Turkish Anadolu Efes. The French basketball player won the Spanish Cup three times, the Spanish Championship twice, the Spanish Super Cup once, the French and Turkish championships. In the summer of 2021, Ertel won the silver medals of the Olympic Games as part of the national team.
VTB United League regular season
Enisey-Parma-Pari 74:76. “Paris Nizhny Novgorod” – MBA 80:87 (overtime). “Minsk” (Belarus) – “Samara” 68:80. Lokomotiv-Kuban – Astana (Kazakhstan) 73:53. UNICS – Avtodor 95:76. Zenit-CSKA 80:85.
Leaderboard
I V P % of wins
1. CSKA 7 7 0 100
2. UNICS 7 7 0 100
3. Zenit 7 5 2 71
4. Samara 7 4 3 57
5. Parma-Pari 7 4 3 57
6. MBA 7 4 3 57
7. Paris Nizhny Novgorod 7 4 3 57
8. Lokomotiv Kuban 7 3 4 43
9. Avtodor7 2 5 29
10. Enisey 7 1 6 14
11. Astana 7 1 6 14
12. Minsk 7 0 7 0
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