VTB League Playoffs Heat Up, Alexey Shved Wins Scoring Title

Don’t look now, but the VTB League playoffs are heating up. Over the last several days the quarterfinals brought some expected results with top teams notching wins. So far, CSKA Moscow, Unics Kazan and Khimki Moscow Region climbed to 2-0 leads in their respective series. Lokomotiv Kuban and Zenit St. Petersburg are tied at 1-1.

CSKA Moscow are the favourites to bag the VTB title this year and have look quite impressive so far. In Game 2, they destroyed BC Nizhny Novgorod with a 86-66 blowout victory. They led from start to finish and pretty much put up a clinic. Daniel Hackett led the charge for the army men with 15 points in just 18 minutes.

In the most recent game, on May 7th, Khimki Moscow Region steamrolled over BC Astana 94-64. This series is almost a sure win for Khimki as Astana simply cannot keep stride with them. Not only did the yellow shirts come up with a huge win, one of their players, Alexey Shved also achieved a career milestone as he scored his 2,500th point. He finished the game with 19 points and seven assists. Jordan Mickey had 18 points and five rebounds, while Malcolm Thomas added 12 points and eight rebounds.

Shved has now made his mark and will be forever in the VTB League record books.

For the side of Astana, Stephen Holt was the top scorer with 15 points. Ken Horton chipped in with 14 points and eight rebounds.