Euroleague. BC Khimki vs. Zalgiris29 january 2016

‪BC Khimki‬ outscored Lithuanian champ BC Zalgiris Kaunas in the Euroleague Top 16 group F week 5 game — 111-80 (25-18, 27-20, 25-23, 34-19) with incredible 20 pts and 11 assists by Tyrese Rice! The next game our team will play in VTB United League in Tbilisi on Monday, February 1, 2016 vs. Vita. The beginning of the meeting is at 17.30 msk.

BC Khimki: Rice (20 + 11 assists + 2 rebounds + 2 steals), Honeycutt (14 + 4 rebounds + 3 blocks), Shved (13 + 3 steals + 3 assists), Koponen (12 + 6 assists + 4 rebounds), Dragic (11 + 2 rebounds), Todorovic (9 + 5 rebounds), Monya (7 + 2 steals), Vyaltsev (7), Sokolov 97), Augustine (6 + 7 rebounds + 3 assists), Sheleketo (3), Ilnitsky (2 + 2 steals).

Post-game quotes

Sarunas Jasikevicius, Zalgiris head coach:

"Congratulations to Khimki and coach Kurtinaitis on a great performance. I believe that we couldn’t do a lot of the things we talked before the game; especially we didn’t control the game offensively. In the end what happened was a lot of easy points by Khimki; that was the biggest key to this game. As a coach I should take the responsibility for the team’s performance. We will try to do better next time".

Ian Vougioukas, Zalgiris center:

"We knew that Khimki is a very talented team that has some charismatic and talented players. Unfortunately, for most of the game, some of them, especially Rice, were able to score difficult shots. In general, we were not able to slow down the game and gave them some easy points in transition. We need to be more consistent and focus on trying to get better and just in general improving our game".

Rimas Kurtinaitis, BC Khimki head coach:

"I’m happy with this win because if we want to pass to the next Euroleague round, we need to win all the home games and take some victories on the road. Now we have four games at home. Today we played nice and quick basketball. I would like to thank the players for their effort and energy that they brought to the court. I’m satisfied with this beautiful win. This season we are playing more consistent basketball and don’t have big downs, for example from 18 points to 2. This is that you need for the Euroleague. Now we have some tough road games in Tbilisi and Athens. It will be tough".

Petteri Koponen, BC Khimki guard:

"We played pretty well during all the game. We were focused and played with energy. Today we moved the ball very well; that’s why we scored 111 points. If you win by 30 points, you can be satisfied. At halftime we were 14 points up and in the second half we put 16 points more. It was a balanced game, but in the Euroleague you just don’t blow one team away in the first half. You have to play all 40 minutes and try as hard as possible. In the end of this group, every point might be important, so we got a good result tonight. Zalgiris surprised Olympiacos by 20 points and we knew that we had to be focused and come out with energy. Everybody produced and played a good game. But the job is not done and we have a lot of games to go. Every game is important now".

Tyrese Rice, BC Khimki guard:

“I think we really came out focused from the beginning and played good defense. Moreover we took advantages from our opportunities in the offense. Overall it was a great effort by us. Tonight everybody was effective on the court”.