By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Behind 22 points by Toko Shengelia and despite missing Mike James and Daniel Hackett who suffered an ankle injury at the start of the third period, CSKA Moscow got the 83-63 win over feisty Nizhny Novgorod.
James was rested by coach Dimitris Itoudis, while Hackett left hobbling the floor when CSKA had already a solid lead and didn’t return to action. It was a rough start for the year for the hosts who got on the 28th of December the 95-85 win over Kalev Talin with Ivan Stebkov scoring 31 points and dishing 10 assists.
Thanks to this result CSKA improved to a 9-2 record – while Nizhny Novgorod dropped to 6-2 – and climbed to the second spot of the standings, behind Zenit St. Petersburg (9-1).
The team of coach Xavi Pascual also got a road win over Enisey (85-67) with Vitaly Fridzon leading the charge with 15 points.
Khimki also improved to 5-5, beating also on the road Lokomotiv Kuban (102-91) with Alexey Shved putting on a show with 30 points and 12 assists. Jordan Crawford scored 34 for the losing side which dropped to 8-4.
Last but not least, Unics Kazan prevailed over Avtodor almost by 30 points (94-65) with Jordan Theodore scoring 28 points. Thanks to this win, Unics got the 5th spot of the standings with a 6-4 record.