At the start of the top 16, the Kazan team won a strong-willed victory over Fenerbahce

Basketball Euroleague

UNICS opened its performance in the second group stage of the Euroleague basketball, top 16, with a very important home victory - 76:71 - over the Turkish Fenerbahce. It’s important not so much in terms of tournaments, but in psychological terms. After all, during the match, the Kazan team lost 17 points to their opponents in Group G.

At the first group stage of the Euroleague, UNICS met with clubs that seemed much more dangerous than Fenerbahce - Barcelona and Siena, and in matches with them did not at all look like a timid debutant with shaking knees. But yesterday, at some point, the Kazan team began to look like just such debutants.

Their problems began, although not immediately. After three-pointers from Peter Samoilenko and Michael Wilkinson, UNICS led 8:2. There was no initial breakthrough in development, but Fenerbahçe did not find ways to knock down the hosts for a long time. The game was quite typical for the top 16 - the stage in which clubs of approximately equal strength fight each other. This is the kind of game where the opponents stay close all the time.

UNICS finished the first quarter in catch-up status only due to misfortune before the siren. Henry Domerkant seemed to competently stop Curtis Jerrells, who was breaking through along the edge - the Kazan team had not yet reached the team limit for fouls. However, the judges decided that Jerrells was already trying to throw a shot at the time of the violation, and therefore he was entitled to three free throws. So Fenerbahce led with a score of 18:15, which, of course, could not yet serve as a reason for serious concern for the fate of UNICS.

Reasons appeared later - closer to the middle of the next quarter. UNICS suddenly began to shamelessly fake it. The collection of blunders performed by his seemingly experienced basketball players, seemingly incapable of jitters, turned out to be colossal. Alexey Savrasenko ran into offensive fouls twice in a row by setting the screen incorrectly. Vladimir Veremeenko, who has a fairly accurate hand, managed to miss both free throws. Kelly McCarthy, in a situation that was, frankly speaking, not extremely difficult, scored a run. Dribbler Domercant tried to make an adventurous pass and lost the ball.

Fenerbahçe does not have the most powerful roster among the Euroleague participants, but it has enough people who can punish mistakes. We are talking, for example, about the sniper Bojan Bogdanovic, who fired from behind the arc as accurately as if he attached a magnet to the ball, pulling it to the basket: one three-pointer, second, third... And in addition to them, he also ran to someone else’s hoop after the interception.

This Kazan eclipse lasted about five minutes, and its consequences were catastrophic. By the big break, Fenerbahçe had run ahead by a serious distance - 41:24. Still not suspecting, of course, what UNICS's answer might be. The response was amazing. After the rest, the Kazan residents seemed to have thrown off the shackles that were hindering them. The defense became tough and sticky, the attack became perfectly organized. The people of Istanbul have already sailed. We swam so that in ten minutes we lost almost all our superiority.

And in the final period, Henry Domercant finally started making shots. The “silent” Kazan sniper burst out with a series of three long-range hits, which seemed to finally break Fenerbahce. Finding themselves behind UNICS, the guests were unable to pull themselves together, shooting at the hoop without looking and passing passes to nowhere.

Late yesterday evening, the second Russian participant in the Euroleague, CSKA, opened its performance in the top 16. The army team, who were in Group E, played away against the Greek Olympiacos.

Alexey Dospehov

Basketball European Cups

European Cup

Second group stage. First tour

Group I. "Gravlen" (France) - "Valencia" (Spain) 63:69.

Group J. "Villeurbanne" (France) - "Donetsk" (Ukraine) 75:86. "Aris" (Greece) - "Khimki" (Russia) 48:73.

Group K. Banvit (Turkey) - Krka (Slovenia) 77:65. "Buducnost" (Montenegro) - "Spartak" (Russia) 57:65.

Group L. Benetton (Italy) - Alba (Germany) 72:64. "Lokomotiv-Kuban" (Russia) - "Lietuvos Rytas" (Lithuania) 81:67.

Challenge Cup

Second group stage. Second round

Group K. Pardubice (Czech Republic) - Fuenlabrada (Spain) 73:79. "Nizhny Novgorod" (Russia) - "Besiktas" (Turkey) 64:75. Team position. 1. Besiktas - 4 points. 2. "Fuenlabrada" - 4. 3. "Pardubice" - 2. 4. "Nizhny Novgorod" - 2.

Group L. Karsiyaka (Turkey) - Antwerp (Belgium) 70:51. "Quackenbrück" (Germany) - "Triumph" (Russia) 83:74. Team position. 1. "Karsiyaka" - 4 points. 2. “Quackenbrück” - 4. 3. “Triumph” - 2. 4. “Antwerp” - 2.

UNICS won with a deficit