KRASNODAR, Russia, June 7 (R-Sport) - Sonny Weems scored 24 points to power CSKA Moscow to Eastern Europe’s VTB United League basketball championship Friday as the team from the Russian capital beat Lokomotiv Kuban 59-54 on the road to complete a 3-1 series win.
CSKA’s victory means the Moscow team has won four of the five VTB titles since the regional competition was founded in 2008, with the exception of BC Khimki’s 2011 championship.
Friday’s game was by far the lowest-scoring in the finals and turned on the skills of Arkansas-born former NBA guard Weems, who started on the bench, as well as the nine rebounds contributed by forward Andrei Vorontsevich.
Forward Derrick Brown top-scored for Lokomotiv with 16 points, while the hosts also relied heavily on American guard Nick Calathes game-leading seven assists.
Lokomotiv outpowered visitor CSKA 18-12 in the first quarter and kept the six-point gap going into the big break.
CSKA won the game in a 23-14 third quarter with an 11-4 spell that gave them the lead for the first time since midway through the first quarter. The fourth was defensive, and CSKA took it 9-7 to close out the game.
In the third quarter a fight broke out on court between Lokomotiv center Alexei Savrasenko and CSKA center Dmitry Sokolov as fans on the bleachers hurled water bottles at the players.
Lokomotiv captain Sergei Bykov successfully appealed to the fans for calm and both teams' coaches prevented the players on their bench from joining the brawl. Savrasenko and Sokolov were both ejected from the game.
