Unics picks up valuable win at St. Petersburg

Unics Kazan defeated Zenit St. Petersburg 65-77 to stay atop Group G with a 3-1 record. The result dropped Zenit to 2-2. The visiting team used a 14-5 run bridging halftime to take the lead for good and never looked back. 2014 Alphonso Ford Trophy winner, Keith Langford contributed 25 points, James White scored 14 and Curtis Jerrells 13 in victory. Dejan Borovnjak amassed a double-double of 11 points and 10 rebounds in defeat. Andrey Koscheev added 11 points and Walter Hodge had 10.

Borovnjak scored 4 of the first 8 points allowing to the home team to lead 8-5. Hodge raised the difference to 14-9, before back-to-back lay-ups by Dmitry Sokolov gave a slim 18-19 advantage to the visitors after 10 minutes. Unics led by a slim cushion early in the second quarter. The score was tied twice before Hodge put the hosts on front again, 30-29. A three-pointer by Langford made it 30-32 for Unics. A long basket from White and a dunk by D’Or Fischer extended the advantage to 36-43 at halftime.

White scored again from three-point range to give a more comfortable 38-46 cushion to the visitors. A three-point-play completed by Artem Vikhrov cut the margin to 41-46 but Jerrells hit a deep three for the first double digit difference, 43-54. Newcomer Rolands Freimanis kept it in double figures, 50-61. Vikhrov tried to keep Zenit close, 54-60 but Sergey Bykov fixed the score at 54-63 at the end of the third quarter. Jerrells scored first in the last quarter before defense prevailed for the following five minutes with just a basket for each team to make it 56-67 with four minutes left. Four layups in a row, two each from Langford and White, sealed the visitors’ victory being at 60-75 with less than two minutes on the game clock. A Jerrells dunk closed the contest.