By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
Only four games in VTB United League this week, but plenty of flaming action going on, courtesy mainly of Unics Kazan and CSKA Moscow. Both Russian powerhouses made a display of power against their Kalev Tallinn and Nizhny Novgorod on the road, with their offensive machines running at full speed, despite missing integral parts.
CSKA and Unics combined for 211 (!) points, cruising past their opponents, even playing without Milos Teodosic and Keith Langford. While the defending champs still overlook everyone in the standings, the victory of Unics was much important since they locked their ticket for the VTB playoffs.
MVP of the Week:
Quino Colom (Unics Kazan)
The road game against Kalev Tallinn could’ve been super tricky for an Unics Kazan that had won only one of its previous seven games in the league. Yet through his brainy playmaking, Quino Colom made sure that his team’s offense would run at full strength to make the difference for an important road victory. The Spanish guard set a new overall career-high in assists by dropping 16 dimes, without spending much time on the floor (27:37) while also scoring 15 points, grabbing 4 rebounds and stealing the ball twice.
Best Five of the Week:
Quino Colom (Unics Kazan)
Conductor of fine tunes in the wonderful offensive performance his team gave in Tallinn.
Viacheslav Zaichev (Khimki Moscow)
In his post-game comments after the victory of Khimki Mosow over Tsmoki Minsk, Dusko Ivanovic complimented some of his players that “demonstrated excellent focus” and showing game-winning atitude on the court. He didn’t throw any names, but there’s a more than safe bet that he was also thinking about Viachelsav Zaitcev. The Russian guard finished the game with a 19 points career-high (also a season best), 5 rebounds, 2 blocks while his team was +18 points ahead in the score when he was in.
Dmitry Kulagin (CSKA Moscow)
With Milos Teodosic out in order to rest, coach Dimitris Itoudis had to use Dmitry Kulagin extensively as a facilitator for his team in the road game vs Nizhny Novgorod. And the Russian guard grabbed the opportunity, making the most out of it with a near double-double of 13 points and 9 assists, plus 5 rebounds. The most important part? He finished with an impressive 26 +-, the highest among his teammates.
Ousman Krubally (Astana)
Another double-double spectacle by Ousman Krubally, thanks to which Astana made short work of the winless Parma, leaving them out of the race for the playoffs. That was some serious dominance by the big guy of the Kazakhs who notched 21 points, 12 rebounds and was unstoppable enough to force his opponents to foul him 12 (!) times.
Artem Klimenko (Unics Kazan)
By far the top performance of the season for the Russian big guy, one which arrived in a game that his team needed to win badly, for reasons stated above. Behind solid shooting (7/9 from the field, 4/6 from the line), Klimenko towered over his opponents with a season-high 18 points while collecting 9 rebounds as Unics left Tallinn victorious.
Coach of the Week: Evgeny Pashutin (Unics Kazan)
When your team is able to grab a blowout road victory by dropping 110 points without your main gunman (and probably most gifted scorer in Europe) then all credit has to go to the coach for building such an efficient offensive system. Minus Keith Langford, Evgeny Pashutin utilized nearly all his players to a great extent, with six of them registering double-figures in bucket making and Unics finishing the match with 32 assists overall.
The Last Word: Seven challengers for three playoff spots
As we’ve said in the prologue, five teams have already claimed a place in the VTB postseason and only three seats are up for the taking. Sixth in the standings VEF Riga (8-8 record), seventh Astana (9-10) and eighth Enisey (8-10) certainly have an upper hand over the rest, since ninth Nizhny Novgorod, for example, is way below with a 6-13 record. Still, nothing is over until it’s over and you may never know how much ground a team can cover if it gets its engines going.