The Ukraine journey28 june 2007
The Russia Cadet team continues the preparation for the European Championship. The next opponent of our players headed by Aleksey Vadeev and Mikhail Komissarov became the National team of Ukraine. During three days Russian and Ukraine teams have faced on the court three times in Kiev. In two test matches Russian team won.
In telephone conversation Aleksey VADEEV commented the results of games:
— Now our players feel the big physical stress. We don’t take off the intensity of practice. I think that if we were in earnest about the results of matches against Ukraine, our gap will be bigger.
The first game we won 82-67. The top scorers became Malykh (21), Chichaikin (17), Lukin (12), Dudu (12), Verbizkyi (10+9 rebounds). We seek for mutual understanding on the court. The zonal defense does not always work. It is no wonder; we worked at it not enough.
At second day we lost 84-87. We yielded the first period 21-26, basically because of losing rebounds. During the match we tried to rectify the situation. But we failed to do it.
In the final game we met with success for us 51-44. Malykh had 11 points, Chichaikin — 10, Lukin – 9, Dudu – 7 on their credit. We were good at defense. We worked at playing guard during two training sessions. Now our aim is to eliminate the defects in attack. Our problems are numerical advantage and easy points.
We will return in Russia on 29 of June. Our players will take some days of rest and on 3 of July we will resume the trainings.
Author: Alexei Kuziashin