Zenit Saint Petersburg earns tiebreaker over Armani Milano to maintain top four push

Zenit Saint Petersburg rallied past Armani Milano at home and earned the tiebreaker over the Italians to maintain a top four push.

The Russians endured the comeback of the Italians, who trailed by 11 in the first half (33-22).

Armani fought back, though, and turned things around to tie the game early in the fourth quarter (60-60).

The hosts stood tall and went on an 11-2 run to take control again and seal the deal in a EuroLeague Round 5 makeup game (79-70).

Kevin Pangos led the way for the winners, with 16 points, 10 assists and three steals.

“I’m satisfied. That’s obviously a great team that we played, very talented, they play hard and for us to get that win at home was huge for us.

I think everybody in the locker room is very happy right now,” Pangos told reporters, via EuroLeague.net.

Zenit and Armani faced each other three weeks ago, with the Italians earning the 82-76 victory.

However, Zenit won by nine and now has the tiebreaker over its opponents.

Zenit improved to 15-9 in the standings and climbed to fourth in the standings.

The Russians have one more makeup game to play (Round 6 vs Panathinaikos), which will take place in the coming weeks.

If Zenit wins it, it will overtake Armani and will be third on the table.

“We are very happy with what we’ve done until now, but we have to continue game by game,” Zenit head coach Xavi Pascual said afterwards.

For its part, Armani saw two of its players move up on the all-time EuroLeague rankings.

Kyle Hines now has 2,658 career points to overtake Khimki star Alexey Shved (2,655) for 12th place all-time.

At the same time, Sergio Rodriguez broke a tie with Milos Teodosic to take sole possession of fifth place on the career charts with 472 three-pointers made.

Both teams will be back in action in Round 26 on Thursday evening. Zenit hosts Valencia, while Armani returns home to face Khimki.