At the start of the game, MBA-MAI looked better and at some point took the lead 11:6. The very first substitutions changed it: the Lokomotiv bench turned out to be way more active – Karvel Anderson started scoring three-pointers, Vladislav Yemchenko both scored and made smart passes, the most spectacular happened to be his alley-oop to Kirill Yelatontsev. As a result, starting from the 5th minute, the Krasnodar team made a 20:2 run, which allowed them to win the first quarter with a two-fold advantage, 26:13.
The next period started with a 3+1 from Anderson – during these minutes he was impeccable in throws from any distance and quickly brought his personal score to 11 points. The opponent also caught some vibe, so a double-digit margin was kept thanks to the efforts of Antonius Cleveland, who gave excellent assists and scored well himself. The teams went into the big break with the same gap as in the first quarter – 45:32.
After the side switch, both opponents quickly scored 5 points each, after which it became obvious how good Isaiah Whaley is today. MBA-MAI scored a couple of three-pointers, to which Loko responded with fine combinations, as a result of which 11 of the 12 players involved in the game scored some points. By the last break, the difference in the score increased a little more – 69:47.
Loko coaches let the reserves to start the final ten minutes – and this experiment should be considered successful, overall. Anderson continued to score from behind the arc, Yemchenko conducted the game cleverly, and Danil Sheyanov became less timid with each second on the court.
The intrigue in the game remained to some extent – but as soon as the hosts got closer by 16 points, Dmitry Uzinsky, Patrick Miller and Whaley brought things back to a calm course.
On Sunday, February 9, at 12 PM MSK, Lokomotiv will play away against Astana.