25 February 2010

Spartak St Petersburg, CSKA, Unics and Khimky won the second games of the Quarterfinals in Russian Cup and will play in Final Four. The easiest victory was gained by CSKA. Even without Trajan Langdon, who was missing this game because of physicians' advices, the hosts took a double-digit lead in the first quarter (25:9) and later improved to 41:18 forcing timeout from head coach of Krasnie Krylya. CSKA used big rotation in this game and fortunately it helped the team to perform well the whole game and finished with 20 points advantage — 75:55. The hosts played solid in defence and stopped the opponents' leaders — Luis Flores finished with 6 points and J. R. Bremer got zero. With Andrei Trushkin DNP another Andrei — Ivanov from Samara became a most productive player ih his team with 11 points. In CSKA only Ramunas Siskauskas (197-G-78), Anton Ponkrashov (200-G-86) and Zoran Planinic (199-G-82) reached 10 points mark. Mikhail Mikhailov, head coach of Krasnie Krilya made some tough comments after the game: 'Statistics show everything. Samara team showed no fighting spirit on the floor today. In the first game we just did not have enough faith in the success but now played sluggishly and tentatively. Because of that we have shown the poor percentage of hits and made a lot of losses, especially in the first quarter. CSKA is not the team, which will allow to relax'.

UNICS destroyed Triumph in Basket Hall — 83:58. Guests surprisingly showed an awful 3 points percentage (25%), missed 36% of free throws and was beaten badly. Kreshimir Loncar came back in action after missing some previous games due to injury and made 14 points — the same number as his teammate Maciej Lampe. Artyom Kouzyakin added 15 points for the hosts. The captain of Triumph Vadim Panin (203-G-84) was the only ray of hope for the visitiors as he finished with 20 points.

Spartak SPb got another hard victory over Dynamo (71:69) and advance to the Final Four, where he will play in semifinal against CSKA. Hosts got the early lead and were ahead by 8 points in the first quarter, but then Dynamo answered with the big run 13:2 and took the lead. In the third quarter Spartak made a short spurt 7:0, which helped the team to bounce back. In the thrilling ending hosts keeped their little advantage despite many missed free throws. James White (198-G-84, agency: Court Side, college: Cincinnati), who was moved by the head coach Zvi Sherf to the point guard position, finished with 8 points just like another Saint Petersburg PG Levance Fields. Milovan Rakovic (208-C-85) celebrated his 25th birthday with 20 points and 9 rebounds. Veteran guard Zakhar Pashoutin added 13 points.

Khimky suffered from injuries of Paulus Jankunas and Petr Gubanov and won only by 2 points against Lokomotiv Kuban — 82:80. Visitors started with 12:4 run and showed good team performance. Khimky regained the lead thanks to the points made by Kelly McCarty (201-F-75, agency: Avi Zilberman, college: S.Mississippi) (21 points at the end) and were ahead by 6 points at the half-time. With the great help from backcourt — Keith Langford (23 points) and Carlos Cabezas (186-G-80) (13 points) — the hosts gave the adequate answer to Gerald Green (203-G/F-86, agency: Lanshire Group) (21 points) and Grigoriy Shoukhovtsov (19 points). Now Khimky will play against UNICS in Cup semifinal at March 18th.

Eurobasket.com