With Gudaitis and Rivers, Zenit would have won vs. Real Madrid

Bad luck for Zenit Sankt-Petersburg, that was all in the game lost against Real Madrid last night. If they would have had Arturas Gudaitis and K. C. Rivers available they things would radically have changed. Not because those two players are superstars but the Russian team is built on the idea of a large rotation with decent guys. The majority of them are only ambitious Eurocup and Champions League level players like Ponitka, Thomas, Poythress and so on. I mean they are not Euroleague top level, but hard workers, fighting for every possession. Zenit gave them the opportunity to play in Euroleague and they do pretty decently that job. But this is not enough against great teams with larger rotation.

I am sure that yesterday with Gudaitis and Rivers Zenit would have won easily by 10 points margin. Real Madrid is a team plagued by injuries and with some aged players, but even so, their rotation was very deep. With Trey Thompkins back they had 12 good players available and this had an important weight in the crucial moments of the encounter.

Another difficulty for Zenit was that Real lost already two days ago with Khimki Moscow, the last team of the Euroleague, so their focus on the game was even bigger now avoiding a second loss in a row in Russia, which would have complicated a lot the mathematics for the playoff race for the Spaniards.

Image: EuroLeague