A very tense struggle started immediately: in the first 2.5 minutes, only Andrey Zubkov and Kirill Temirov were able to score. Then Loko pushed the tempo with two consecutive “steal – dunk” episodes. First, Patrick Miller let BJ Johnson score, then Anton Kvitkovskikh performed it solo. And as soon as Makar Konovalov scored a three-pointer, Miller did the same – 12:8.
At some point, the visitors did nothing but long shots, but with poor percentage, so Loko (thanks to one more dunk by Kvitkovskikh among another episodes) at some point made the gap double-digit. Nevertheless, by the end of the quarter, the efforts of Daniil Kasatkin and Evgeny Minchenko brought MBA-MAI a little closer – 25:20 in favor of the home team.
Thanks to Dmitry Uzinsky, who made a fine steal and finished the attack, a mid-range shot by Miller, and a 3-pointer from Vladislav Emchenko, the hosts regained a double-digit lead by the 13th minute, 32:22. Soon Daniil Kosko made his debut for the Krasnodar team: he missed his first throw, but he hammered his second one, thus forcing Vasily Karasev to take a timeout to bring MBA-MAI to its senses.
Loko compensated for the low shot percentage with vigorous in defense – Antonius Cleveland had 3 blocked shots by the 2nd quarter. After the third one, he passed an alley-oop to… Miller – but our 6-footer did not score itt, so Johnson added the ball to the basket, 44:32.
Then, Vladislav Trushkin had a good run: two 3-pointers in 36 seconds – and now it was Andrey Vedischev’s turn to take a timeout. The Muscovites even reduced the gap a little more after that, but 4 consecutive accurate free throws by Johnson allowed Loko to get 25 points for the second quarter in a row – 50:42.
After the game resumed, Trushkin rushed to save MBA-MAI – and missed three long shots in a row. The game turned hectic: in one of the episodes, five different players got down on the parquet in the fight for the elusive ball – and Kvitkovskikh eventually made a quarterback assist to Yemchenko, 55:44.
The guests continued to shoot from afar – still wide, and Cleveland soon showed how to do it, 61:45. Zubkov shortened the gap a little, but the same Cleveland got himself on fire – 66:48 by the end of the quarter.
In the 4th quarter, the Lokomotiv coaching staff finally let Andrey Martyuk play. And the Loko center immediately began to show his best: in the very first attack, he scored quite spectacularly. But the visitors dug in their heels in defense, began to bite off the gap literally one point at a time, and when Kasatkin scored a 3-pointer, it turned out that the Krasnodar advantage was not that big, 68:60.
Kirill Temirov came out and scored a very important mid-range shot, then Miller performed his signature isolation and immediately made an interception – 74:62 after two free throws by Temirov. The hosts were not going to give their opponents any hope once again: a furious dunk by Johnson, a steal by Isaiah Whaley, 3 points by Miller – 79:63 with 2.5 minutes left!
The outcome became completely clear after Temirov’s long-range shot and a technical foul, which was Zubkov’s fifth.
Lokomotiv will play their next match on Sunday – this will, without a doubt, be the main basketball event in Krasnodar this December: we are playing against CSKA. Few tickets are still available – hurry up if you haven’t bought them yet!