By Stefan Djordjevic/ info@eurohoops.net
Nizhny Novgorod completely took over the game early in the fourth quarter with a crucial run which propelled them to an 88-79 home win against JDA Dijon.
The sides are now tied at 1-1 in the best-of-three series in Basketball Champions League Round of 16. Game 3 will be played in France.
Evgenii Baburin led the winning effort with 22 points including three shots from deep to spark the game-winning run for his squad. Terell Parks helped with 14 points while Anton Astapkovich added 13 and Pavel Antipov 12 points.
Parks also grabbed ten rebounds while for Dijon, Richard Solomon scored 18 in addition to Lamonte Ulmer and David Holston’s 12 points each.
Holston was set on finishing with more than that by stealing the ball from Nizhny players who were running down the clock, however, he couldn’t beat the buzzer.
And he can’t even beat the buzzer ? pic.twitter.com/4SMWVvKod0
— Marco Pagliariccio (@loupaya) March 11, 2020
Nizhny coach Zoran Lukic wasn’t happy at all with Holston’s move: “Actually, I’m a little bit shocked by the end of the game. It seems like somebody doesn’t know about fair play,” he said at the press conference.
Despite the game being fairly balanced until the final period, Dijon was ahead only at the start (3-2) while Nizhny held the lead for the rest of the game. The Russians were up 46-41 at halftime and later on, at 65-63, made a 21-7 run which gave them the win.
Both teams banked eight triples with similar percentages but the key difference was Nizhny’s advantage in the paint. They grabbed 36 boards including 12 on offense while Dijon tallied only 20.
Photo Credit: Basketball Champions League