“I am ashamed. There shouldn’t be such an outcome in the match of the Big Four teams,” Antanas Sireika, head coach of UNICS, nobly noted, having just lost to Khimki with almost a 30-point difference. , a pause between matches. Maybe something else ... We will sort it out. "
The best clubs in Russia - CSKA Moscow, Dynamo Moscow, UNICS and Khimki - admittedly unbearably boring. Their meetings, so long-awaited, carry the only intrigue - it is not clear who will win. How to win is easy to predict. Almost never the grandees of Russian basketball, packed with European stars, did not show a serious fight. Rare exceptions are brought by Khimki, who beat the army team minimally and insultingly missed the two-match triumph over the blue and white (this battle does not count - it was a cup game and ended with a big difference). Disorder: the cheerful NBA, with which everyone wants to take an example, pleases with crazy endings and overtime almost every evening. What is the matter?
“Center” Khimki “Lampe and Wolves are just above the class of our players,” - with a condescending smile explained the success of the top scorers of the meeting Sireika. Really recently, the brothers Lavrinovichi and Meshcheryakov were not considered the most dangerous front line of the Super League? “When we played almost two days later, we felt much better,” he opened his eyes to the paradoxes of the Sireik championship. “It would be easier to show the best qualities against the background of tiredness.” Is it really the inability to maintain physical fitness?
The meeting of Khimki and UNICS is not the best example. Even the winners coach, the demanding Kestutis Kemzura, admitted that for the first time in his life he was satisfied with both the result and the quality of the game. The owners on Saturday at their home floor were doing something unimaginable. Their implementation of shots in the first half approached an incredible 70 percent, and as a result of the match amounted to 63.6 percent. This may seem impossible to basketball experts even with a complete lack of protection from opponents. Then these same rivals will explain that from the first minutes they lost control of the game, allowing, according to Shireika, to wipe their noses without showing a bit of anger.
It’s strange enough to watch how this happens in a duel of such teams. Especially when the loser is the participant of the quarter finals of the ULEB Cup, and the winner is the loser of the 1/8 finals. One explanation comes to mind: modern Russian super clubs are simply unable to fight when they don’t see an obvious goal in front of their nose or when their attention is scattered. They are not able to consistently feel responsibility in the ordinary match of the regular season - with the exception, perhaps, of the always magically motivated CSKA. Perhaps, it was they who freed themselves from the European competition, multiplied by the absence of the need to fight in the Cup of Russia, who played Khimki with special ease.
“What have we eaten?” Melvin Booker laughed in the side room. “Yes, we’ll just be home tomorrow!” Kemzura, indeed, promised his wards an extra day off for the victory. Freely tuned Lithuanian coach of the Moscow Region squad often pronounced the word "freedom". And in the description of the action on the team transformed into a real playmaker Gianmarco Potsecco, and in the explanations of the subtleties of mood for victory.
Big Four lacks freedom? Responsibility? Or should we wait until spring when the playoffs begin?
Nikolai TSYNKEVICH