By Antigoni Zachari / info@eurohoops.net
Another week of action in the VTB League has passed, full of action and notable performances. Khimki Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod grabbed overtime victories over CSKA and Zenit respectively, while many players stood out with their scoring abilities, including our MVP of this week, who managed to give his team an important result!
Check out this past week’s action:
MVP
Perrin Buford Avtodor
The 25-year-old Avtodor player scored 30 points in Avtodor’s road victory against Parma on 11-14 FG and added nine rebounds for a total PIR of 33, the best of any other player this past week in VTB League. This performance also tied Buford’s season-high with the Saratov side (he also shared 30 points vs. Kalev in October).
Shved scores more than half of Khimki’s points
Alexey Shved is back and he means BUSINESS! Not only did he score a new career-high vs. CSKA Moscow in Khimki’s overtime victory, but he also scored more than half (!) of the team’s points in the game. An impressive comeback for the Russian guard who seems to be unphased by his long-term absence from the court. He might have exaggerated a bit on the shooting part (10-31 FG), but who can blame him? Not us, since we love stats and he also provided us with more! Shved now owns the record for most FG attempts, surpassing Randy Culpepper’s 28 attempts with Krasny Oktyabr in October 14th, 2013.
An upset for CSKA
The reigning VTB League champions suffered defeat from their fellow Moscow region rivals and coach Dimitris Itoudis was more than upset after the game.
“I usually begin my press conference by congratulating the winning team. I will remain a gentleman and do that again. But if you watch objectively, you’ll see two different stories and can decide who was the main protagonist on the court today. We tried to play basketball”, he commented in his post-game quotes. This marked CSKA‘s third loss in VTB this season, though the Army Team remains first in the race of the standings.
Loko takes a step forward
Lokomotiv used just enough power to defeat visiting Enisey and move up to a 13-5 record in the standings, currently a tie with Khimki. The Krasnodar side had JaJuan Johnson and Dorell Wright leading their effort with 14 points each, as the team took a step forward towards homecourt advantage in the upcoming playoffs.
Avtodor fights for a place in the playoffs
Paced by this week’s MVP Perrin Buford, Avtodor outdid second-to-last PARMA to fight back in the standings and keep the eighth spot with an 8-10 record, currently a tie with Kalev who also defeated Tsmoki-Minsk this past week.
Results:
Nizhny Novgorod – Zenit 85-83 (OT) (Baburin 22 p. – Reynolds 25 p.)
Parma – Avtodor 93-105 (Zukauskas 18 p. – Buford 30 p.)
Lokomotiv – Enisey 79-67 (Johnson 14 p. – Roberson 18 p.)
UNICS – Astana 95-98 (Henry 34 p. – Jenkins 24 p.)
Kalev – Tsmoki-Minsk 108-83 (Moultrie 26 p. – Saddler 19 p.)
Zielona Gora – VEF 78-92 (Starks 14 p. – Zack 25 p.)
Khimki – CSKA 73-72 (OT) (Shved 37 p. – Clyburn 17 p.)
? Турнирная таблица по итогам 19-й недели сезона
? Standings after Week #19 pic.twitter.com/aYg48agxxw
— VTB United League (@VTBUL) March 5, 2019
Photo credit: VTB League