After kind of historic victory of Tsmoki-Minsk over Enisey thanks to a crazy comeback with minus 27, which set the VTB United League record of all time, the fans of the Dragons, of course, wanted to "continue the banquet." But the next opponent was not very convenient for creating another feat. St. Petersburg Zenit is one of the real contenders for the gold of the VTB United League and at least for a place in the Euroleague playoffs. But the power and star roster of the Blue-White-Blues didn't frighten Rostislav Vergun's squad, our guys tried to show everything they were capable of. Alas, the opponent's possibilities turned out to be more extensive: Tsmoki-Minsk lost - 74:90 (20:17, 12:23, 16:25, 26:25).
Starting fives
Tsmoki-Minsk: Angelo Warner, Yauheni Beliankou, Jason Clark, Darol Zinenko, De’Quon Lake.
Zenit: Dmitriy Kulagin, Jordan Loyd, Sergey Karasev, Alex Poythress, Jordan Mickey.
Game scenario
The basketball players of Tsmoki-Minsk came to the warm-up in T-shirts with a portrait of the captain of the reserve team Roman Guest, who was recently diagnosed with leukemia. “Roma, we are with you!” - inscription phrase on T-shirts in support of a young teammate, to whom we sincerely wish strength, courage, and most importantly, a mandatory recovery.
For clubs that participate in the Euroleague and have a busy game calendar there, meetings in the VTB United League with representatives from the bottom of the standings seem to be a cakewalk. But not in the case of such a biting team as Tsmoki-Minsk. It won't let anyone relax. Especially after a bright victory in the previous round over Enisey, which, without a doubt, gave our guys confidence in their abilities.
With this confidence, we began the meeting with the formidable St. Petersburg rival, who is second in the VTB United League. Moreover, the dragons tried not just to hit the ring, but to do it in an aesthetically beautiful way. So, Lake opened the scoring with a beautiful floater, Beliankou strengthened the position with a dunk, Clark made a dagger drive, Stabrovsky just entered the court and immediately scored two points, and finally, the same Beliankou finished debut period with a long-range hit. It finished in the favor of the dragons - 20:17.
Lost quarter seriously excited Javi Pascual. The head coach of Zenit not only emotionally expressed claims to his wards, but also changed players on the floor in search of the best option. And it looked like he found it. Volkhin, who entered the game, began to bombard our rim from a long distance and quickly brought eight points to Zenit. But we found a worthy answer: Stabrovsky from the free throw line, Trostinetsky from behind the arc, and Warner in the emotional drive became the creators of a successful segment, which helped break away from the guests by 6 points - 28:22.
Alas, the joy was short-lived. Zenit perked up and gave a crushing spurt 18:4. Rostislav Vergun twice tried to stop the enemy's emotional outburst by taking time-outs, but it was not easy to stop the Blue-White-Blues, who had gained cruising speed. Karasev brought more problems to the dragons. It's a pity that in the final attack the ball, after Warner's soft throw, rolled along the rim and fell in the wrong place - 32:40.
During the long break, honoring of the head of the Tsmoki-Minsk basketball club Yuri Ivanovich Shakola took place. The chairman of the Belarusian Basketball Federation Maxim Vladimirovich Ryzhenkov and his deputy Andrey Anatolyevich Balabin congratulated the hero of the day on his 50th birthday. Let's join in the congratulations!
After the rest, Zenit began to act much more aggressively in defense, what greatly complicated the scoring ability of the team from Minsk. In addition, the St. Petersburg team in the fight for rebounds skillfully used the advantage in the anthropometry of their "bigs" Mickey and Poythress. The matter was complicated by the fact that Tsmoki-Minsk centers Lake and Stubeda quickly picked up fouls, mostly for the wrong setting of screens. Trouble also happened to Hernandez-Zinenko: blocking the opponent's attack, Darol landed very hard with his body on his hand.
Denouement
In the middle of the third period, the experienced Zenit steadily began to improve and by the end of the ten-minute period increased the lead to 17 points (48:65). This became a wake-up call. Moreover, Rostislav Vergun was limited in the choice of players who could really help the team. Beliankou set an example: Zhenya not only threw a lot on his own, but also boldly penetrated into the enemy’s defensive formations. In one of the episodes, he tried to hammer the dunk over Mickey and almost hung a highly experienced center on a poster.
And still, the power and individual skill of the basketball players who successfully perform in the Euroleague (Zenit in the main European competition shares fourth place with the Greek Olympiakos) could not but affect. The Zeniths, though not by much, but surpassed the dragons in terms of technical indicators, and this was quite enough for the team to maintain a comfortable advantage obtained in the second and third quarters.
Prominent roles
Tsmoki-Minsk forward Yauheni Beliankou looked like a real team leader, scored important goals, boldly walked into the drives. He turned out to be the Dragons' most valuable player with 21 points, 3 rebounds and 1 assist for an efficiency rate of 18.
Scoring leaders:
Tsmoki-Minsk: Yauheni Beliankou - 21 PTS + 3 REB + 1 AST, Angelo Warner - 15 PTS + 7 REB + 4 AST + 1 STL, Darol Zinenko - 9 PTS + 2 REB + 1 STL.
Zenit: Igor Volkhin - 15 PTS, Alex Poythress - 14 PTS + 6 REB + 3 BLK + 1 STL, Jordan Mickey - 12 PTS + 6 REB + 2 STL + 1 BLK, Sergey Karasev - 11 PTS + 5 REB + 2 AST, Billy Baron - 11 PTS + 3 AST.
Rostislav Vergun - Tsmoki-Minsk Head Coach:
We’ve met a very organized and high-quality team, balanced in all lines. It was a good opportunity to test ourself against a such high level opponent. In some aspects we were successful. But, probably, long pause still affects, and it's hard to catch a quality rhythm. Plus, physically, we are not one hundred percent ready to maintain the intensity, speed, pressure, aggressive defense that we would like to see. Of course, without showing your best basketball, it is difficult to count on a positive result in the game against Zenit. And if we turn to statistics, then out of seventeen turnovers, we have to remove half of the offensive fouls and in situations where, having an advantage, we made not the best decisions. I congratulate the opponent on the victory. There is good ground for reflection and for progress. I'm glad that we managed to involve a new young player. I hope this experience will be useful to him in the future.
Next game
Now the VTB United League is on pause for national team matches in the 2023 World Cup qualification. So the next game Tsmoki-Minsk will play in the spring: March 6 in Kazan will meet with UNICS. The game starts at 19.00.