CSKA — Zenit, 12 October 2021

CSKA – Zenit St.Petersburg: 77-67 (+10)

CSKA: Lundberg (3 + 4 as + 3 to), Voigtmann (8 + 4 rb + 4 as + 4 pf), Shengelia (33 + 8 rb + 2 as + 2 st), Kurbanov (4 + 4 rb), Shved (8 + 2 as + 3 st + 4 pf) – start; Bolomboy (2), Khomenko (DNP), Ukhov (0), Ivlev (DNP), Hackett (3 + 5 as + 2 st + 4 pf), Antonov (0), Clyburn (16 + 7 rb)…

Zenit: Karasev (0), Baron (5), Poythress (2 + 4 pf), Frankamp (2), Mickey (7 + 5 rb) – start; Loyd (19 + 4 as + 4 pf), Kulagin (8 + 3 to), Pushkov (DNP), Kuzminskas (5), Zubkov (8 + 5 rb + 2 as), Ponitka (5 + 4 rb + 4 as + 4 to), Gudaitis (6 + 6 rb)…

I would like to congratulate my team on another win. I liked the performance in general and I liked the fact that we can rely on our defense, hustle, on each and everyone. Vanya was coming off the bench and bringing something, Simon was coming and bringing us something. Those guys were full of energy no matter if they played for 5 or 20 minutes. I liked that we are all on the same page. We were coming off the road win where we were scoring great, 100 points, and now we were below 80 but we kept Zenit on 67… Lets not forget that Zenit won two games to start the season, against UNICS and Zalgiris, where shooting-wise they were great, Billy Baron and the rest. We managed to keep them low. I liked that the team made certain changes and looked like a chameleon, as I used to say, changing colors, adjusting, playing high-scoring or low-scoring game. We had great opening. They started to pressure a bit more, we turned the ball over on certain occasions, with no reason to do it. We analyzed that in a half-time. Iffe and Dani had 5 turnovers which is normal because they are on-ball creators. We talked about spacing, about where and why we are turning the balls over. We changed that and we lost just one quarter. I liked the unity. This is what we are trying to build, a good chemistry.