Spartak St. Peterbusrg rolled over KK Cibona Zagreb on Wednesday evening with a 93-60 home win. There was no chance for the guests as 8 of 14 threes and
great defense for the hosts made it 51-23 at the halftime break, and it was a formality from that point until the final buzzer. Spartak, who was already a
Last 16 team before this game, stays undefeated in Group G with a 5-0 record while Cibona is out of the Eurocup with a 0-5 record. All players in Spartak played at least 7 minutes and scored at least 2 points. Five players scored in double digits led by Vasiliy Zavoruev and his 15 points, followed by Janis Strelnieks with his 12 points behind 4 threes of 7 attempts. Zach Wright and Vladimir Dragicevic added 11 apiece and Josh Carter had 10. For Cibona, Ante Masic, Justin Hamilton and Hrvoje Kovacevic had 10points each to lead the guests.
A solid collective effort in offense allowed Spartak St. Petersburg to soon build a solid lead. With three early three-pointers, including Patrick Beverley's
the hosts were already 15-4 during the first five minutes. Two threes by Ante Masic revived KK Cibona to make it 18-12 with still plenty of time to go.
However, Spartak had another burst in the next plays with Nikita Kurbanov as protagonist to make it 26-14 to put an end to the first quarter as Spartak had
already hit 5 threes. The scoring run continued in the second quarter as Zach Wright lifted a layup for the 30-14 as Cibona was struggling on both ends of
the court. The run in the period was up to 12-1 until Pavle Marcinkovic broke with with a slam for 38-17. Spartak was totally relentless and was already up
to 8 triples in 18 minutes, 44-19. A personal show by Vladimir Dragicevic put an end to the first half with a 51-23 Spartak edge.
The pace changed in the third period. Defenses took over and Cibona stood up to the challenge as it didn't allow Spartak to score as easily as in the first
half. Andrija Zizic scored four straight free throws for all his points in the game at that point for the 60-32, but Janis Strelnieks showed no remorse with
a three for 63-32. The problem for Cibona was that Zizic kept hitting free throws while Strelnieks did the same with three-pointers, and the hosts were soon
up to 73-37 again after Fedor Dmitriev's free throws. The last word in the quarter was for the guests however as Hrvoje Kovacevic nailed his own three for
73-40 after 30 minutes. Kovacevic was on fire from the arc as two more bombs from him lifted Cibona for a while as Marcinkovic joined him for a 2-8 run that
made it 74-48. Spartak reacted fast, of course, as Vasily Zavoruev nailed five points of his own to keep the game wide open. From there, it was all over for
Cibona, who couldn't get another solid scoring run and Spartak just cruised to a new win in the group to remain undefeated in the regular season.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Eurocupbasketball.com