After the first 1.5 minutes, the score was 0:1 due to Nikita Kurbanov’s free throw. Then Aleksandr Gudumak found Andrey Martyuk with a fine pass – and it turned out to be the beginning of an amazing solo show. Martyuk scored a 3-pointer, then a floater, and a little later, just like Antonius Cleveland, he took the ball, broke through to the basket and performed a sweeping dunk.
CSKA punched back: from the 5th to the 8th minute, the leader changed 5 times. At some point, Karvel Anderson performed a long shot to set the score to 26:22. And as soon as CSKA tied it again, the same Anderson scored again – this time from about 9 meters. Yet, the Muscovites went into the first break as leaders – 30:29.
Martyuk put Lokomotiv ahead in the first attack after the game resumed. Then Anderson showed some versatility: he scored two floaters in a row from about 3 meters away, and Martyuk dunked another beautiful one – 37:30. At that moment, Melo Trimble got on fire, but as soon as he tied the score, Cleveland scored a 3-pointer – 43:40. Then Gudumak began to beat Amate M’Baye in the attack time after time, and Cleveland scored another one from eight meters away – 50:42.
The pace increased even more: in the last three minutes of the 2nd quarter, the teams scored a total of 20 points. This time, Lokomotiv went into the break as the leader – 58:54.
When the game resumed, Kirill Temirov scored 8 points in 2.5 minutes. Trimble scored two more long-range shots and put CSKA ahead, 63:64. However, Gudumak quickly returned the lead to the Krasnodar team from behind the 3-point line. After a while, Aleksa Avramović tied the score again with a 3-pointer, 69:69. Not for long: Cleveland broke into the opponent’s paint and performed his signature dunk. Miller immediately made a steal, passed to Cleveland, who made a smart assist to Martyuk. Seconds later, Martyuk scored another three-pointer – 76:69!
A rapid exchange of shots began again. For Loko, Cleveland, who succeeded in slaloming to the hoop, and Miller, who hit the target from afar, performed the most notable episodes. This allowed the Krasnodar team to win the 3rd quarter and pull ahead a little more in the score – 86:79.
Vladislav Yemchenko increased the gap to 9 points at the start of the 4th quarter, but Avramović scored a very difficult 3-pointer and immediately added 2+1 – 88:85. Soon Casper Ware made it even, but Martyuk was accurate from the long distance (for the third time this evening!). After that, for the first time since the beginning of the game, there was some non-scoring period: both opponents successfully defended several times in a row. Three and a half minutes before the end, Martyuk made a block shot to Trimble – but twisted his leg upon landing. It looked scary on the replay, but the center left the court on his own two feet.
Miller from the free throw line put Lokomotiv ahead, 96:95. In the counterattack, Cleveland blocked M’Baye’s shot and passed to Kirill Yelatontsev for a dunk – “+3” with 110 seconds left!
But these 110 seconds contained a very big amount of events. Miller’s shot allowed Krasnodar to reach the 100-point mark; Trimble kept scoring; Yelatontsev blocked Tonye Jekiri’s shot; Miller gave Gudumak a magnificent assist, but was almost immediately ejected for excessive fouls. Avramović made 3 points from the free throw line; Yemchenko missed his two free throws – but won the rebound and still scored 2 points, 106:101!
M’Baye quickly won back 3 points, and in Lokomotiv’s counterattack, the referees called a technical foul on Casper Ware, which drove CSKA coach Andreas Pistiolis into a frenzy – he ran onto the court to prove something to the referees and Yelatontsev, and his players barely managed to drag the coach to the under-tribune. But Cleveland did not score a single free throw, and in the final seconds Avramović threw for the win – but the CSKA player has already exhausted his share of miracles for this thriller of a game.
Lokomotiv inflicts the second defeat of the season on the ruling champions – we have won against them as many times as all the other teams in the league combined.
Now our team has three home games in a row: January 25 against Yenisei, January 29 against Pari Nizhny Novgorod and February 1 against Avtodor. We are waiting for you at Basket Hall! Let’s do the show together!