Khimki Moscow is currently playing a ridiculous basketball
The only excuse for Khimki for the bad start of the season in VTB League could be the absence of their leader Alexey Shved. Ok, he is an impressive scorer, but the team has many offensive weapons. Khimki is a complete squad including in their roster many talented foreigners and very experienced Russians. The absence of Shved can be a problem if you play the Final 4 of the Euroleague against tough teams like CSKA, FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Anadolu Efes, but not against this poor Nizhny Novgorod.
The host team has at the moment only one American, Kasey Sheperd, while another important guy Luke Petrusek is injured. The Serbian-French big man Alexandre Gavrilovic is helping also but he is not a god on the court. So Nizhny’s roster is made almost only by homegrown players like Strebkov, Baburin, Astapkovich, average Russian players. The team was not able to beat Dijon last week in the Basketball Champions League and now they beat the Euroleague powerhouse, Khimki. The mediocrity on big money, Khimki. The team that is not able to score, to defend and to do basic things in basketball.
How is possible for a team that aims for the Euroleague’s playoff to allow a no-name American player to score against you 26 points in a quarter? I’m sorry, but Kasey Shepherd is not Lebron James. Then again how is possible that Anton Astapkovich scored 34 points against Khimki? The answer is: when you don’t defend and you don’t play with motivation you make heroes from the average opponents, allowing them to score from every angle. Welcome to the new Khimki!
Gratian Cormos is a life coach and mentor living in Barcelona, Spain. He is the author of the book “How to bet on basketball” available here for only 11 euros. For the passionate bettors, he created a Telegram channel where you can subscribe in order to receive ALL the betting tips that he makes.
