By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Alexey Shved scored 22 points and dished seven assists to go along with seven rebounds, Jordan Mickey added 17 points and Khimki Moscow Region got the 85-69 win over Buducnost VOLI.
Despite a bad start in the season, the hosts were on paper the better team and proved it beyond any doubt. After a competitive first period which ended with the hosts leading by one (18-17), the half time score was 45-30 for Giorgos Bartzokas’ team and the game was over. Thanks to a 16-7 partial score (34-24) Khimki got a 10-point advantage and pretty much kept it until the end.
“I think the ratio of our assists and turnovers was the key. We had 21 assists and 8 turnovers. That means we had creativity. We controlled the game for 40 minutes through our defense“, said coach Bartzokas after the end of the game.
Buducnost tried its best, but Khimki was leading by eleven at the start of the last quarter (65-54). Earl Clark with 19 points and Alen Omic with 10 scored in double-digits for Buducnost, but were not a factor in the game.
As Bartzokas explained: “Everyone knew it was a must-win game for us. I want would like to give credit to Tony Corker and Charles Jenkins who played despite their injuries. They were not ready to play, but they gave everything and I appreciate it. We will have to play much better against Zalgiris. When you have injured players it is not easy to play for 40 minutes at the same high level. We were maybe loose, watching at the score. We have to improve on that, but we won, which was the important thing today.”
It was an uneventful game which will be remembered mainly for this unusual play. Stefan Markovic threw the pass to Jordan Mickey who made a basket using his head.
Is that an assist? ? #shaqtin pic.twitter.com/HNwtD0nw5R
— Eurohoops.net (@Eurohoopsnet) November 21, 2018