VTB United League. BC Khimki vs. Enisey — 91-84 4 may 2017

Huge effort in the last quarter led BC Khimki to a crucial win over Enisey Krasnoyarsk in the first VTB United League quarterfinals game — 91-84 (14-23, 30-21, 22-25, 25-15). Second game will be played in Khimki on Saturday, May 6, 2017. Tip-off at 18:00 msk.

BC Khimki: Shved (33 + 5 assists + 3 rebounds), Rowland (13 + 4 assists + 3 rebounds), Todorovic (9 + 10 rebounds + 4 steals), Monya (9 + 6 rebounds), Hummel (9 + 4 rebounds), Boungou-Colo (6 + 3 rebounds), Sokolov (5), Zaytcev (4), Vyaltsev (3), Pullen, Ilnitskiy

Enisey: Hilliard (18 + 6 rebounds), Braimoh (15 + 8 rebounds), Elegar (14 + 13 rebounds), Taylor (10 + 7 assists + 6 rebounds), Trushkin (10 + 5 rebounds + 4 assists), Zavoruev (8 + 4 rebounds + 4 assists), Pichkurov (7 + 4 assists), Lukashov (2), Kanygin.

POST-GAME

Oleg Okulov, Enisey head coach:

"It was our first playoff game and we lost, but in my view it was a good game for the fans. A bunch of unnecessary mistakes at the end allowed Khimki to take advantage of its talent, which resulted in our defeat. But the playoffs are only starting and there are more games to play. We’ll try to be more disciplined in the following games".

Dusko Ivanovic, BC Khimki head coach:

"This is the playoffs and every game is tough at this stage. That’s especially true in the first game because we had an easy win in our last regular-season game in Krasnoyarsk and it wasn’t easy to get the team to forget about that result. I hope today’s game was a good school prior to the next one. Enisey is playing great this season, especially on the offensive glass. We need to be very focused and improve our defense. Todorovic and Sokolov got in foul trouble today, which forced us to go small. But that’s not an issue of having “big” or “small” players out there. You always need to go after rebounds and battle, instead of watching where the ball drops. We watched Enisey get rebounds and fell asleep at times".

E.J. Rowland, BC Khimki guard:

"I definitely expected [this game] would be tougher. I thought we gonna play a little better but sometimes when the play-off start you have to adjust to evey team and find your own rhythm. We had great shots but we had to adjust to their style of play and find ourselves during the game. I think we'll be better next game. We have to play more like ourselves and focus on the things like getting back on defense, trying to box out better to keep them off the offensive rebounds. Just make an adjustment".