The leaders took their places – Sport – Kommersant
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In the central match of the week of the VTB United League regular season, UNICS hosted Zenit. Kazan won in both previous meetings of this season with St. Petersburg and were aiming for a hat-trick of sorts. Only he allowed UNICS to keep more or less real chances of becoming the first in the regular season. The guests, however, turned out to be stronger: Zenit won with a score of 80:69. This is still a good outcome for UNICS. Indeed, in the course of the match, the gap between the guests exceeded two dozen points.
In mid-February, even before the break in the regular season of the VTB United League due to the league’s All-Star Game, UNICS defeated CSKA and thus seemed to regain the chances of overtaking the army team in the regular season. The task was difficult. In order to remain masters of their destiny, Kazan needed to win the remaining games, including the March 2 match against CSKA Moscow (with a difference of at least 8 points). However, there was nothing fantastic about it.
So for the match against Zenit, Velimir Perasovich’s wards had to come out extremely motivated. And it was them who, without any stretch, should have been considered favorites – in view of the already mentioned prospects for first place in the regular season, and the factor of their site, and, it would seem, the “unimportance” of this match for Zenit, which also arrived in Kazan without the injured Thomas Ertel.
The “unimportance” of the Kazan trip for “Zenith” could be explained by the position of the team in the standings. “Zenith” firmly settled in third place. The reigning champion was five wins behind second-placed UNICS. Nizhny Novgorod, which was fourth, was ahead by three. In the month remaining before the end of the regular season, Zenit had no special chances to either rise higher or fall lower.
However, already the first minutes of the meeting showed that Javi Pascual’s team arrived in Kazan to win. And it seems that this was a surprise for Kazan basketball players.
They played too slowly, even imposingly, for Zenit’s defense, one of the best in the league, to cope with their attacks. At the same time, the guests themselves were much more effective in creation and in the opening they broke away by seven points. Petersburgers carefully carried this advantage to the end of the quarter. And at the beginning of the second, after a long-range hit by Trey Tompkins, the lead of the guests was already double-digit. The hosts tried to get Zenit with long-range shots, but in vain. The balls stubbornly refused to fly into the basket.
Suffice it to say that UNICS threw 25 3-point attempts in the game, of which only five hit the target. “Zenith” in terms of long-range artillery, worked much more economically, but at the same time more efficiently – nine attempts and seven hits. And they happened, as if by order, at the most inopportune moments for UNICS. What is at least worth the fact that both the first and second quarters ended with three-pointers in the performance of Vitaly Fridzon, who extinguished the fire that seemed to appear in the eyes of Kazan.
The teams went to the big break with the score 30:42. Velimir Perasovich needed to urgently figure out how to save the match, but this was not possible.
His team got bogged down in the Zenit defense over and over again, and when it did falter, it missed the right chances. An illustration of the game of UNICS, perhaps, can serve as a misfire, committed by Vince Hunter. After intercepting the ball, he ran under the Zenith ring, no one bothered him, but instead of a savory dunk, Hunter drove the ball into the ring rim with both hands. When even such balls do not want to go into the ring, you involuntarily decide that the basketball gods are against you.
And yet UNICS did not give up. At the end of the third quarter, the hosts were already 21 points behind the guests. The match seemed to be done. But it was at this moment that the Kazan team played the way they should have played from the very beginning. Jalen Reynolds played out, Georgy Zhbanov gave out a couple of excellent and timely attacks – and Zenit’s powerful advantage halved. With a ten-point gap with five minutes remaining before the siren, something could be done.
Unfortunately for UNICS, the Kazan players’ enthusiasm was not enough for a full quarter. Zenit won with a score of 80:69 and entrenched itself in third place even more firmly. UNICS remains second. And if suddenly CSKA does not begin to lose, which is extremely difficult to believe, it will remain second.
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