Today, Rostislav Vergun's team met with CSKA in the regular season match of the VTB United League at Megasport Moscow. Despite the bright struggle of Minsk residents in the first half of the meeting, the red and blue finished the match with a victory with a score 112:84 (29:23, 30:26, 24:15, 29:20).
Starting fives
MINSK: Daniil Kasko, Jarred Ogungbemi-Jackson, Vadzim Stubeda, Uladzislau Mikulski, Benjamin-Pavel Dodoo.
CSKA: Kasper Ware, Toni Jekiri, Anton Astapkovich, Samson Ruzhentsev, Semyon Antonov.
Game progress
Minsk residents showed quite a strong mood for bright basketball and a tight fight in the first half of the meeting. In the opening quarter, Daniil Kasko took the lead in our team, who in several effective attacks got the first 8 points for MINSK, and Grigori Motovilov and Uladislau Mikulsky made out the exact “three-point” shots. But CSKA retained the lead by the beginning of the second quarter – 29:23.
Rostislav Vergun's wards lost a little to the red and blue in the second quarter. However, the aggressive struggle on the part of MINSK allowed CSKA to score easy points when shooting from the free throw line. In our team, Benjamin-Pavel Dodoo, Grigori Motovilov and Jarred Ogungbemi-Jackson demonstrated the accuracy of shots from behind the arc. Muscovites were not inferior in accuracy either: the opponents left with a score of 59:49 for the big break.
In the third quarter, the owners of the court began to work out more confidently both in defense and in attack. Once again, Daniil Kasko distinguished himself in our team, who made 3 accurate shots from an average distance and 1 from behind the arc. However, in team interaction, Minsk residents added a number of offensive losses to the increasing number of misses, which led to a confident double-digit advantage of CSKA. The opponents went to the final break with a score of 83:64.
Interchange
Unfortunately, in the final 10 minutes of the meeting, the Muscovites still held the lead on the court, despite the struggle of our players, including accurate “three-point” shots performed by Daniil Barysevich, Grigori Motovilov and Artsem Sekushenka. The Muscovites kept the right pace for a confident victory and ended the match with a victory with a score of 112:84.
The most productive:
MINSK: Daniil Kasko – 22 + 4 REB + 1 AST + 2 pass, Jarred Ogungbemi-Jackson – 16 + 3 REB + 9 AST, Grigori Motovilov – 16 + 2 REB + 2 AST.
CSKA: Anton Astapkovich – 19 + 2 REB + 1 AST, Casper Ware – 14 + 1 REB + 7 AST, Livio Jean-Charles – 14 + 2 REB + 2 AST + 1 STL.
MINSK head coach Rostislav Vergun: “It's great that we managed to involve all the guys, give them the opportunity to try themselves against a very solid and high-quality opponent. We are pleased with our performance – the most productive game this season, especially in the first half a lot turned out: good execution, good speed, quality of attack. The defensive game leaves much to be desired. 112 points, with all due respect to the opponent and the quality of their game, but we had to do a better job. A lot of things that were planned to be used did not work out, especially against the game at the bottom, against how the opponent tried to materialize his advantage in size. They were very well prepared and effectively countered this. We won the rebounds – this is also good news. I want to add from game to game in quality. We hope that it will be better in the future.”
The next match, which will take place on November 2, will be the third in a row on the road for our team. MINSK will play again in Moscow for the first time against the newcomers of the League – Runa. The meeting starts at 20:00.