Euroins Cherno More got away with it to beat CSKA

Atanas Penev played very well off the bench

28-11-2008 22:31

Favorites Euroins Cherno More almost slipped up near the end of their away game in the Bulgarian NBL versus CSKA, but they still managed to win by 77-86. After the great performance in the overtime win versus CSU Cuadripol last week in the Eurohold BIBL, now they had a much weaker opponent in crisis-stricken CSKA in tonight's domestic league tie. Yet, the Cherno More players got complacent towards the end of the game, after dominating most of it, and were about to throw away their entire lead, but came through to win it eventually.

After a low-scoring first few minutes with a lot of turnovers by both teams, the CSKA players had a woeful spell and the visitors started to pull away. The latter had a lead of 13-25 after the first quarter, despite missing too many shots from behind the arc. If they had been more accurate from out there, Cherno More could have secured their victory right then and there.

CSKA's poor performance (especially in offense) continued and the team from Varna kept building their lead, mostly thanks to some good plays by their American point guard Corey McIntosh. Before they had a good 7-0 run just before the break, the hosts had only scored 5 points during that second quarter. It ended at 25-42 in favor of Cherno More.

In the second half 23-old forward Atanas Penev, who missed much of last season with an injury, was impressive off the bench for the visitors. Although he only played 11 minutes, he dished out 5 assists - more than all point guards in the game - and managed to liven up his team's play. Their lead went up to as much as 22 points, but then CSKA had another good run and brought it down to just 14 points after three quarters - 48-62.

In the last quarter the home team continued its revival, while the Cherno More players were getting quite slack, thinking they had already won the game. Youngster Sergey Tsvetkov inspired his teammmates for an attempted incredible turnaround and it almost came true. The visitors' advantage was cut to just 3 points at 69-72. But, luckily for them, an even younger player - Aleksandar Yanev - saved the day by scoring 7 points in three consecutive possessisons of Cherno More. After that they just held on to win by 9.

Despite their poor 3 pt FG percentage, the visitors managed to amass a total of 86 points in the game. Most of it was given up by CSKA, rather than scored by Cherno More though. Corey McIntosh topscored for the Varna team with 24 points and added also 6 boards, 5 assists and 4 steals. Yanev netted 14, while Atila Santos had another double double this season – 11 pts and 11 rbs.

Sergey Tsvetkov scored 21 points for the hosts and had 3 steals, but also 8 turnovers. CSKA's best and most experienced player in their current active roster - Milos Sakota - had his regular 20 points to go with 12 rebounds for another double double.

Euroins Cherno More are now 3-rd in the table with a record of 5-3, while CSKA are 2-6 and second to last, just above winless underdog Sliven.

FULL STATS OF THE CSKA - EUROINS CHERNO MORE GAME

CURRENT STANDING IN THE NBL

SCHEDULE AND SCORES IN THE NBL

INDIVIDUAL STATS IN THE NBL

TEAM STATS IN THE NBL

DOUBLE DOUBLE STANDING