Unics Kazan outlasted 106-88 EiffelTowers Den Bosch on Tuesday, for Group D. Unics raised its record to 2-1 while EiffelTowers dropped to 1-2. Unics exploded in the second quarter with a 17-4 run to take a comfortable 44-26 margin and control of the match. Early in the third quarter, another 8-0 run closed the contest definitively. Unics had seven players scoring in double figures led by 18 points apiece of Mateen Cleaves and Dusko Savanovic, Sergey Chikalkin chipped in 16, Egor Mescheryakov tallied 15, Saulius Stombergas posted 14, Ksistof Lavrinovic sank 13 and Jarrod Stevenson produced for 12 points. Lavrinovic put on a show inside, taking 16 rebounds and 7 steals. Leon Rodgers of EiffelTowers led all the scorers in the game by nailing 28 points to go with his 10 rebounds. Sam Jones chipped in 12 and Travis Young 11 for the visitors.
Lavrinovic and Young exchanged triples to open the scoring, then after a slim 3-5 advantage for EiffelTowers, the Unics big man pushed his team to an 8-5 lead. Young answered for the guests with a triple to tie 8-8, but then Cleaves took over the game. The diminutive Unics point guard exploded with 12 consecutive points that pushed Unics ahead 20-11 after 7 minutes. Jos Frederiks and Dusko Savanovic traded three-pointers to maintain the difference before EiffelTowers answered with a 0-5 run to pull within 23-19 and force a Unics timeout. Igor Mescheryakov posted a layup right after that, and then Saulius Stombergas took a feed from Cleaves to increase the Unics margin to 27-20 at the end of the quarter. Sharone Wright got EiffelTowers started in the second quarter by scoring on an offensive rebound, but a trio of Unics triples by Mescheryakov, Sergei Chikalkin and Lavrinovic gave a comfortable 36-22 advantage to the hosts. Savanovic found half the Unics points in an 8-4 run to a 44-26 lead after 16 minutes. Rodgers took charge for EiffelTowers then by nailing 9 consecutive points that cut the cushion to 46-35. The veteran shooters of Unics, Chikalkin and Stombergas, responded by boosting the home team's lead to 52-36 before James Nelson's jumper fixed a 56-43 score at halftime for Kazan.
Early in the third quarter, EiffelTowers had back-to-back triples from Jones to get within 61-49, but Unics didn't wait to hit the guests with another blast, 10-0 this time, capped by a layup from Mescheryakov that made it 71-49. Rodgers ended several scoreless minutes for his team at the foul line, but Chikalkin exploded like a rocket from long distance to make it 74-51. The teams seemed to be on fire while exchanging jumpers and triples, before Stevenson gave the best margin of the night to Unics, 81-57, and the third quarter ended 83-60. Eiffeltowers side climbed again to within 83-67 when Wright slammed the ball early in the last quarter, but again triples from Chikalkin and Stombergas re-established a 91-67 cushion with 6 minutes left. Late in the last quarter the margin hovered around 20 points until Ray Weathers of scored the last basket for the visitors to fix the final score at 106-88.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
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