After UNICS Kazan beat Nizhny, CSKA Moscow moved back to 2nd place in the VTB standings, but in case of a win over Zenit, they would regain the pole position. However, Zenit St. Petersburg had other plans as they started with two consecutive 3-point shots by Jordan Loyd, and continued with the same double by Billy Baron. The starting hosts’ run clearly stunned CSKA – 16:8. And yet the Army team managed to stabilize the game quickly. CSKA began to actively play inside, activating Tornike Shengelia and Nikola Milutinov, which led to an 11-0 run. At the end of the quarter, the Moscow team had already seized the lead, but Jordan Loyd did not allow the guests to end the quarter as leaders — 21:21.
By the end of the first half, Zenit led by 7 points and, at the end of the third quarter, held on to a comfortable lead (65-53). In the fourth quarter, Zenit controlled the game both offensively and defensively and beat CSKA with 81-68 and is now in shared third place of the VTB standings together with CSKA.
