League leader CSKA Moscow never trailed, but was never able to pull away before taking a 78-87 victory at LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne to extend its winning streak to 11 games.
CSKA holds off ASVEL for 11th straight win
Game Report
1 min read
League leader CSKA Moscow never trailed, but was never able to pull away before taking a 78-87 victory at LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne to extend its winning streak to 11 games. Mike James poured in 31 points with 6 assists while Nikola Milutinov picked up 17 points and 14 rebounds for CSKA, which improved to 13-3. Toko Shengelia added 13 points and Darrun Hilliard 11. ASVEL saw its two-game winning streak snapped and fell to 5-10. Guerschon Yabusele paced ASVEL with 16 points and 6 rebounds, Allerik Freeman scored 13 points and David Lighty had 12 points and 6 rebounds. It was ASVEL’s first loss at home since November 13 - a stretch of four wins.
Regular Season
Round 16 of 34
Group Regular Season
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Hilliard’s layup started the scoring for the visitors with Moustapha Fall doing the honors for ASVEL. The hosts could not slow down CSKA with four different players scoring in a 2-9 surge to move ahead 4-11. ASVEL fought to stay in the game with Fall making it 10-15. Hilliard drained a three-pointer at the other end as the advantage grew to 10-19. Noris Cole made a triple for the hosts, who trailed 15-21 after 10 minutes. Ismael Bako’s alley-oop dunk opened the second quarter, but James began taking over with 7 straight points and the margin reached 19-30. ASVEL managed a mini 5-0 spurt, but Shengelia and Nikita Kurbanov hit triples as the advantage grew to 27-42. ASVEL used the long ball to get back into the game as Freeman made a pair of triples and Antoine Diot and Yabusele went back-to-back from deep to get the deficit down to 41-46 at the break.
ASVEL got three-pointers from Yabusele and Lighty early in the second half to get within 47-48. CSKA answered with baskets by Milutinov and a James triple to lead 49-57. The home side would not go away as Kevarrius Hayes scored 5 straight points. Five points from Will Clyburn had CSKA up 57-66 and the cushion was 60-66 after 30 minutes. Charles Kahudi’s first basket opened the final frame and the hosts were within 4 points. CSKA punched back yet again with a James steal and dunk and then a Johannes Voigtmann triple to make it 64-73. The battle would continue with a Cole jumper trimming it to 69-73 only to see James and Freeman swap three-pointers. CSKA stepped up its defense and held ASVEL scoreless for nearly 3 minutes. Shengelia rebounded and put back his own missed free throw to lead 72-83. Milutinov came up with a big putback of his own to make it 74-85 with less than 2 minutes to play.
Game Leaders
Pivotal performer
Nikola Milutinov once again was outstanding as CSKA’s big man collected 17 points and 14 rebounds - five of them on the offensive glass - for an index rating of 30. It was Milutinov’s fourth straight double-double and a season-high in PIR.
Did you notice?
ASVEL’s big man Moustapha Fall was limited to just 7:21 minutes in which he scored 4 points and committed 2 fouls. He had tallied 31 points with 11 rebounds and 8 assists in the last two games combined.
Telling numbers
CSKA controlled the boards 33 to 27 including 14 offensive rebounds for an 18 to 6 advantage in second-chance points.