By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Zenit St. Petersburg destroyed ASVEL Villeurbanne 87 – 53 to stay alive and well in the race to make the EuroLeague playoffs for the first time in the history of the club. The Russian team, that improved to 18 – 14, has two games to play since there’s also a postponed match vs. Panathinaikos Athens pending, apart from the last regular season contest vs. Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Billy Baron and Austin Hollins scored 15 points apiece for Zenit while Arturas Gudaitis had 13 points and Kevin Pangos 10 points plus eight assists. Their team came out blasting from the locker room to win the third period 25 – 6 and dominated the rest of the game.
“We play great as a team and it’s good for us to show our fans that we are still alive and we want more,” Zenit swingman Mateusz Ponitka (six points, seven rebounds) said. “We are going game by game. When you think too much ahead, then it’s a problem in the present… We’re going to focus on and try to win every game.”
ASVEL, that had got a 28 – 29 lead in the mid of the second quarter, couldn’t retain its competitiveness after the balanced (41 – 37) first half. Only David Lighty (12 points) scored in double figures for the French side that has been out of playoff contention for weeks.