Sasa Obradovic and Vasily Karasev have already played against each other this season in St. Petersburg – however, with different teams. The VTB United League All Stars was won by the Russian coach. The same has happened today.
The hosts started the game intensively. Zenit made a burst at the start but Mardy Collins managed to slow the pace down. Zenit won the first quarter – Griffin successfully attempted the last shot and earned a 5-point advantage for his team – 22:17.
In the second period, Krasnodar maintained its rhythm and played the gap back – 41:41 ahead of the second half of the game.
During the whole game, an advantage of any team was less than 8 points. Both teams managed to make bursts and switches. Loko showed its best in the end of the third quarter when Frank Elegar stole the ball and assisted Trevor Lacey for alley oop.
However, Zenit came back. They had a 10-point burst at the start of the final quarter and took the lead. A minute before the end of the game, Loko played well in defense and tried to make transition. But Kuric fouled on Lacey who missed one of two free throws 7 seconds ahead of the final buzzer. The hosts had the last offense. Sergey Karasev missed the shot under the rim but Gordon took the rebound and netted the ball 0.3 seconds before the end of the game. Loko lost the fifth game in the VTB United League – 78:79.