Comparing to the first Supercup game, the Loko coaching staff shuffled starting five a bit, adding Antonius Cleveland and B.J. Johnson to Andrey Martyuk, Anton Kvitkovskikh and Patrick Miller, who were on at the beginning of the previous match.
And Cleveland immediately began to live up the coaches’ expectations. Then Miller scored with a foul, Kvitkovskikh made an interception and finished the counterattack himself. That made Loko lead 7:0 in the second minute – to the delight of its very well-heard fan sector.
Crvena Zvezda added in toughness, fouls started raining down from both sides, and despite the sniper excellence of Martyuk, who scored both from under the hoop and from a distance, the Serbian team not only evened out the gameplay, but also made a 9:0 run, which only Vladislav Yemchenko managed to stop. The Belgrade team went into the first break leading 23:16.
Lokomotiv started the second period in a powerful way once again: BJ from under the hoop and Isaiah Whaley from afar scored 5 points in a row, and soon the same Johnson put Krasnodar ahead – 25:24. But the subsequent 10 points in a row were scored by Crvena Zvezda.
Loko managed to make kinda run in response – 9:3 spurt with Johnson’s long-range shot as the cherry on top. Miller gained a real loco-motion: he either scored no matter how many opponents tried stop him, or fouled in offence. Shortly before the break, Cleveland levelled the score once again, but Zvezda still managed to score the buzzer – 43:45 after half of the game.
At the beginning of the 3rd quarter, Miller scored a fine one from mid-range, and Johnson forced his opponent to foul him during a long-range attempt and made all three free throws – 48:51.
Alas, Miller soon received a 4th foul in the attack and was substituted. Yemchenko replaced Patrick as point guard – and did it well enough. Kvitkovskikh and Uzinsky gave a great energy to the team at that moment – it was Uzi’s pass that helped Kirill Yelatontsev make 2+1 in one attack, tying the score, 55:55.
Crvena Zvezda once again increased their toughness and scored 8 points in a row. Lokomotiv’s coaches took a timeout, after which Cleveland scored 3-pointer, albeit on the second try. But the opponent also managed to increase their score before the end of the period – 59:65.
The Krasnodar team once again tried to pick up the pace at the beginning of the 4th quarter, but this time the opponent was ready for it. For every clever play by Loko, like Yemchenko’s pass to Kvitkovskikh, Zvezda had the unstoppable Ognjen Dobric in the post, for every locomotive breakthrough by Miller – a long-range shot by Dejan Davidovac. And fouls still were registered more often than points scored.
At some point the Serbian team was ahead by 13 points. Then Johnson scored from long range, but Isaiah Kanaan did the same – with less than two minutes left on the scoreboard.
Всё оставшееся время «Локо» образцово прессовал соперника: «Црвена Звезда» в трёх эпизодах подряд нарушила правило 24 секунд, правило зоны и правило 8 секунд. Но, увы, в набранные очки для краснодарской команды это не конвертировалось.
For the rest of the game, Loko showed a master-class in pressing: in three episodes in a row Crvena Zvezda was forced to violate the 24-second rule, the zone rule, and the 8-second rule . Unfortunately, this defensive effort did not turn into points for the Krasnodar team.
So, tomorrow at 1 PM Lokomotiv Kuban will play for 5th place in the VTB United League Supercup against Turkish Beşiktaş.