By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
This weekend in VTB League was packed with many great games and top-notch individual performances but we’ll mostly remember it as the one when we bore witness to the awesome playmaking show of Milos Teodosic and Stefan Markovic. The Serbian guards didn’t only act as creative beacons for their teams, as they usually do, but used their… advanced Serbian artistry to paint some truly beautiful basketball masterworks on the canvas of the floors they stepped their feet on.
The result? Victories for CSKA Moscow (over Unics Kazan) and Zenit St. Petersburg (vs Enisey) that keep these teams at the first and second place of the standings, respectively. Khimki Moscow climbed to the third spot after bringing down the usually unbreakable defense of Lokomotiv Kuban, while VEF Riga and Astana achieved key wins in the race for the playoffs.
MVP Of the Week: Alexey Shved (Khimki Moscow)
His teammates should shower him with buckets of ice on a daily basis to prevent him from spontaneously combusting. By far the hottest player in the league and quite possibly the most clutch one. His latest show arrived vs Lokomotiv Kuban on the road where he dropped 29 points, 8 rebounds and, more importantly, hit the biggest shots of the match. Khimki was trailing 84 – 80 when he picked his gun for back-to-back 3s that made it 84 – 86 with 26 seconds left, putting his team at a pole position.
Best Five of the Week:
Stefan Markovic (Zenit St. Petersburg)
He generally keeps the offensive machinery of Zenit St. Petersburg well-oiled, but against Enisey he took it on another level. Literally, since he registered an overall career high in assists by sending 17 dimes to his teammates. It’s a season best in VTB and a number that tied the fourth top related performance in the league’s history. The crafty Serb also scored 7 points and stole the ball twice from his opponents.
Milos Teodosic (CSKA Moscow)
Not only did he post a double-double consisted of 19 points and a game-high 10 assists but also knocked a key 3-point bucket to give his team a safe six-point lead, 92 – 86 with 64 seconds left in the victory over Unics Kazan.
But as is always the case with Milos… numbers don’t even tell half the truth of the sheer magic he brings of the floor. Don’t keep your mouth open for long, a fly might pop in.
Alexey Shved (Khimki Moscow)
Don’t touch him, you’ll get burned.
Leonidas Kaselakis (Astana)
Astana maintained an advantage in the battle for the playoffs by beating Nizhny Novgorod on the road with Kaselakis wearing the cape of the hero for the Kazakh squad. With his team down 77 – 78 and two seconds left, he grabbed the offensive rebound after a failed shot by Miller and hit the floating game-winning shot. His contribution wasn’t limited to this huge play however, since he finished with 12 points and a team-high 7 rebounds, four of them on offense.
Mareks Mejeris (VEF Riga)
VEF Riga needed this victory… badly, particularly after facing an upset at home by Nizhny Novgorod mid-week. In order to escape Minsk and further cement its presence in the playoffs zone to avoid possible troubles down the road, it needed many players to emerge vs a team that was fighting to keep its post-season hopes alive. Mareks Mejeris answered the call by recording a valuable double-double of 10 points and 11 rebounds while throwing four blocks on his opponents.
Coach of the Week: Dusko Ivanovic (Khimki Moscow)
Khimki’s offense against Lokomotiv Kuban was potent enough to drop 89 points on rock-solid defense that allowed only 68 before that match. Well, that’s saying something doesn’t it?
For this to happen, coach Ivanovic made sure that his players would first keep their cool and then react after a sloppy first-quarter (28-17). They continued shooting the ball relentlessly, recovering fine enough to set the wheels in motion for the upcoming victory of their team. Both squad proceeded with some ups and downs until the end but the bottom line is that Khimki remained dangerous in an arena where Loko hadn’t lost in VTB since… October. Then Shved’s crunch time law decided the result and the rest was history.
The last word: Ryan Broekhoff hit it straight from Australia
Ok, we knew that Ryan Broekhoff has some serious range in his shooting but that buzzer-beater was freaking insane. The “Crocodile Dundee” of Lokomotiv Kuban may as well sink it in from the other side of the globe (sorry Kyrie Irving).