By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
The season of Khimki Moscow Region is full of ups and downs, but the game against Real Madrid proved to be “up” beyond any doubt. Khimki got the 102-94 win over the Spanish contenders on a big night for Alexey Shved.
Khimki’s star had 12 points on 4/4 threes and no other shot in the first half while dishing nine assists. Ηe ended the night with 21 points and a career-high of 13 assists. Not bad for a player regularly accused of not liking to share.
“I think we played much better defense,” Shved said after the game, ” in the last 5 minutes, we probably didn’t push ourselves hard because the difference was big, but we need to play to the end”.
Devin Booker also added 15 points, finishing a lot of Shved’s assists with thunderous dunks. He stayed 20 minutes on the floor, before hurting his knee and missing the rest of the night.
Khimki got a solid 55-44 halftime lead and never trailed after the third minute of the game. Τhe hosts started the last period with a 13-0 run, that gave them a 24-point advantage (93-69)
The final score was quite flattering for Madrid, which had a great offensive night, shooting 60% in two-pointers and 45% in threes until the end of the third and finishing the night with 60% and 44,4%. However, Khimki was even better with 66,7% and 55,6%, respectively.
Anthony Gill and Janis Timma added 13 points each for the winning side, while Jordan Mickey was Real Madrid’s top scorer with 20 points against his former team, and Fabien Causeur scored 17.
“We just made a lot of mental mistakes today”, sais Mickey. “We didn’t play like ourselves. We’ll be fine. We just have to get back to the drawing board and we’ll be ready for the next game. It’s more mental than physical”.
Thanks to this result Khimki is had strong playoffs chances with a 9-11 record, while Real Madrid remains second in the standings with a 15-5 record.
“It’s a big success”
As Khimki coach Rimas Kurtinaitis admitted, this win is also a morale boost for his players: “It was for sure a very important game for us because we lost a couple of games. And for sure to win against such a big team as Real Madrid is a big success. So first I want to say congratulations to our guys and a big thank you because we showed a lot of energy and the maximum effort that we could and we got the victory. Maybe the result is really big because we played three and a half quarters of really good defense and to play against such a tall and strong team is not easy, but we were good today.”
On the other hand, coach Pablo Lasso admitted that his team should have been even more consistent in the offensive end: “Our third quarter was more solid, but we didn’t succeed with open shots that would allow us to return to the game. At that time we made bad decisions, both in offense and defense, and they got a big lead. We know how difficult this Euroleague is with this calendar. If you want to win here you have to do many things well and we didn’t do them”.