In a crazy match of the United League regular season, the basketball players of Kazan UNICS defeated CSKA 105:103 at the guest venue in Moscow. This game will go down in history as one of the brightest for the entire existence of the international tournament.
Photo: United League Press Service
In the capital’s Megasport, about two thousand spectators gathered for the game. This is not a bad figure for today, taking into account the restrictions in force during the pandemic and the fact that many sports fans are focused on the events of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, China.
This season, the participants of the May “golden” series of the United League playoffs met for the fourth time. At the beginning of November, as part of our tournament, the Kazan team prevailed at home over the current champion with a score of 69:64, and in mid-December, the team from the capital of Tatarstan won again, but in Moscow and in the Euroleague meeting, and even more convincingly – 88:67. However, more recently, at the end of January 2022, the “red-blue” managed to take revenge in Kazan in the second round of the main continental competition – 86:75.
Now, UNICS started the first quarter very confidently – 26:13. The army men caught up with the principled opponent for a long time, gradually, and still, at the end of the second ten minutes after hitting their captain Nikita Kurbanov, they reduced the gap to a minimum – 41:42. With this score, the opponents went on a big break.
Then there was an equal game, the leadership changed every now and then, everything was coming to an end in the last seconds of regular time. But this did not happen, by the end of 40 minutes the point was not set. Ten seconds before the siren, the best player of the United League in January, according to the fans, the Croatian legionnaire of UNICS Mario Hezonja led the guests ahead (77:75), in the return attack, the Lithuanian army Marius Grigonis earned free throws and was twice accurate from the line. There are four “axes” on the scoreboard, that is, 77:77.
Surprisingly, the scenario of this ending was almost repeated at the finish of the first extra five minutes. 5 seconds before the signal, Grigonis is on the penalty line again, and again he puts two balls one after the other on target – 85:85.
It was not possible to determine the winner in the second added five minutes. Again, the Army team escaped with penalties, but this time performed by Daniel Hackett, there was still half a minute left after his throws – the score did not change. Once again, absolute equality is 92:92.
And yet Kazan, led by Croatian specialist Velimir Perasovich, who was appointed by the League as the mentor of the “Stars of the World” team for the “All-Star Match” on February 20, in the third overtime, tipped the scales on their side. At the beginning of the 55th minute, UNICS was inferior (101:103), the victory was achieved thanks to a hit by Mario Hezonyi and an accurate throw by O.J. Mayo, which he made a moment before the siren, already final.
The main statistical results of this fantastic match are as follows: Mario Hezogna (31 points) and John Brown (16) became the most productive among the winners, Daniel Hackett (33) and Gabriel Iffe Lundberg (19) were the top scorers in the ranks of CSKA. Moreover, Hackett has five well-aimed shots from behind the three-point arc, the Armenian Nikola Milutinov made a dozen rebounds, his rivals Hezonya and Tony Jekiri – ten each.
In another match of the game day, Zenit St. Petersburg defeated Estonian Kalev on the road with a minimal margin – 75:74. The rivals picked up the spirit of irreconcilable struggle from CSKA and Kazan. The winners of Monday’s matches are the leaders in the United League championship.
The indicators of UNICS – 11 wins – 2 losses, Zenit – 10 wins and 3 misfires. Next in the “regular season” table are (ranking by percentage of wins) Saratov Avtodor (8-3), CSKA (9-4), Perm Parma and Krasnodar Lokomotiv-Kuban (6-4 each). BC Nizhny Novgorod (5-6) and Krasnoyarsk Yenisei (4-7) are also in the playoff zone.
