We lost to the champion in the end

Main team news

26.03.2023

UNICS suffered an away defeat from the reigning VTB United League champion Zenit with a score of 78:83 in the final match of the 2022/23 regular season. The result of the match had no effect on the final placement of the teams in the table: UNICS finishes the regular season second, Zenit - third.

Kazan started powerfully, achieving a double-digit advantage by the middle of the first quarter (17:7) and during the opening 20 minutes of the meeting only once allowed the hosts to briefly take the lead. The third ten-minute game was decisive, which the team from the banks of Neva won with a score of 22:14. At the end of the game, the guests reduced the gap from «-11» to «-3» (71:74), but UNICS failed to complete the chase.

Unfortunately, our guys did not have long-range shots - only 4 of the 18 threes of white-green reached the goal.

The leader of UNICS in terms of performance was Jalen REYNOLDS, who scored 19 points and added 8 rebounds to it. Nenad DIMITRIJEVIC, Vince HUNTER and Louis LABEYRIE shared 37 more points among themselves.

The opponent of UNICS in the first round of the playoffs is Parma-Pari from Perm, which took 7th place in the regular season.

VTB United League. Regular season. Round of 32.
Zenit (Saint Petersburg) – UNICS (Kazan) – 83:78 (18:22, 23:19, 22:14, 20:23).
Zenit: Klimenko (15+7 rebounds), Homesley (14), Huertel (12+7 assists), Fraser (10)
UNICS: Reynolds (19+8 rebounds), Dimitrijevic (14+4 assists), Hunter (12), Labeyrie (11+5 rebounds).

POSTGAME COMMENTS:

Velimir PERASOVIC, BC UNICS head coach:

«Zenit played better today and won. In the first half, our team controlled the course of the match, but at the end of the second quarter lost several rebounds. We were constantly changing in defense, which implies a risk. In general, such a system of playing defense gives an advantage, but sometimes there are unequal exchanges in the paint. I will note that we started the third quarter badly. Its first minutes, when we made a few unnecessary losses, decided the game».