By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
A period of five quite dominant minutes at the end of the second quarter paved the way for 83 – 70 victory of Unics Kazan against Nizhny Novgorod and the 1-0 in the VTB League quarterfinal series.
Keith Langford was the protagonist for the winners with 26 points, 6 rebounds and 3 steals with Latavious Williams adding a double-double of 14 points and 11 rebounds, while blocking his opponents twice.
Nizhny Novgorod had a good entrance and an early 10 – 16 lead, yet the hosts responded quickly to that. The turning point of the match came a bit later, when with the score 30 – 30 at the mid of the second period, Unics Kazan had a 14 – 4 partial score to make it 44 – 34 at halftime.
Coach Pashutin’s players preserved an advantage around double-digits until a sequence of three-pointers by Nizhny made it 68 – 62 five minutes before the end of the game. The hosts’ answer came with an 11-3 partial score that more or less sealed the final outcome.
Since three players of Nizhny Novgorod (Dmitry Khvostov 20, Vladimir Ivlev 16, Semen Antonov 15) scored 51 of its 70 points, it becomes obvious that the team lacked the diverse contribution needed to win in such a game.