UNIKS-2 – CSKA jr: 79-66

Without any doubts the goal to win a road game against the older team was a very difficult one. And the goal itself put the junior team into troubles. Half of the team supposed it to be real one and fought, the other part just did not look motivated.

UNIKS-2 – CSKA jr: 79-66

Alexey Shved could become a hero of the beginning of the game with 5 points in 4 minutes and a block shot to Taras Osipov but his two fouls made the head coach of the team Andrei Maltsev take the player away from the game for a while. Neither UNIKS nor CSKA controlled the game from the very first minutes. Although junior team looked better as a team than in the start of the first game it could not avoid mistakes in the defense. With 2.39 to go in the first quarter Andrei Maltsev was forced to take a time out. His players started to loose concentration and the rival took 22-14 advantage. By the end of the period the juniors looked better, almost evened the score – 25-22 but could not gain the control on the game. In the middle of the second quarter the Army club even was ahead by one point 31-30 but then let the opponent to score some long distance shots and once again UNIKS forced the head coach of our team to talk to the players – 40-33. This time they stepped on the court extra motivated but that was enough only to cut down the difference again 40-38 with 2.27 to go in the first half.

CSKA put pressure on UNIKS in the 3rd quarter and four times in a row managed to leave the rival scoreless in their possessions but it as all the efforts were focused on the defense, the team started to make mistakes and miss shots in the offense. So once again the goal to even the score was not reached. By the time UNIKS started to loose the players because of the foul troubles. Almost all of the tall players left the court before the start of the last quarter. But it was too late for the junior team. Mentally the team was not ready to go on fight and finished the quarter with the result 63-54.

In the last period there were no questions about the winner. The only thing that had to be determined – the point difference. UNIKS got the maximum lead of 20 points with 6.15 to go in the game. That made the juniors to pull themselves together but the only result they managed to get is another loss with 13 points difference.