The game started quite slowly, but suddenly in the 4th minute the teams scored 4 three-pointers in a row: for Uralmash it was Euheni Beliankou, which was responded by Antonius Cleveland, Kirill Temirov and Alexander Gudumak – 11:7 for Loko.
Soon Danil Sheyanov won the offensive rebound against Hayden Dalton and performed a dunk; Cleveland blocked Beliankou’s long-range attempt; Kirill Yelatontsev scored first from close range, then from afar; Tahjere McCall, who made his debut for Loko, snatched the ball in the floor fight, which allowed Dmitry Uzinsky to score an easy basket – 23:17. At the end of the quarter, Mikhail Vedischev scored a great shot, but Jeremiah Martin managed to hit the hoop from almost the center of the court right with the buzzer – 26:24 in our favor.
Then both opponents seemed to remember that they also needed to defend. A low-scoring game with a lot of contact began, which sometimes led to passions boiling over. In two episodes in a row, attacking fouls occurred (first Uzinsky violated, in the counterattack ‒ Ilya Popov), after a tough game by Gudumak, and a little later by Ivan Pynko, the referees went to watch the video to determine whether the incident was unsportsmanlike.
Little by little, Uralmash took the lead. For some time, Kirill Temirov’s solos allowed Lokomotiv to stay at a distance of one possession, but then Dalton scored two three-pointers in a row ‒ 34:41 and a timeout for the Krasnodar coaching staff. Thanks to free throws from Miller and Cleveland, Loko managed to pull up to “–3” again, but 2+1 from Javonte Douglas again left the hosts with the last word in the quarter – 40:46.
After the side switch, the tough fight continued. Gudumak and Sheyanov quickly picked up a lot of fouls, but Loko didn’t let Uralmash run far away, and after McCall scored his first point in the VTB United League from the free throw line, the score became 52:55. However, Dalton scored another difficult 3-pointer, Martin made an interception and ran to the defenseless hoop, Octavius Ellis easily received the ball in our paint and scored another 2 points ‒ and the teams went into the final break with a double-digit gap, 54:64 for Uralmash.
The start of the final period did not add any reasons for optimism to the Krasnodar fans ‒ at some point, Lokomotiv’s deficit reached “–12”. But Vladislav Yemchenko scored a hard step-back, Yelatontsev rammed into the paint and hammered it in with both hands, and to another crazy three-pointer by Dalton Loko responded first with a Miller-Yelatontsev combination, and then Miller himself scored a pretty good one. After Cleveland made 2 free throws out of 3, the scoreboard lit up 66:72 ‒ and there were almost 5 more minutes to play.
Another minute later, it turned into 70:72 ‒ thanks to tight defense, two free throws by Miller and a hit from the middle by Yelatontsev. Miller intercepted a pass to Ellis, and Yelatontsev scored another point after a foul. And after Martin was forced to make a turnover, Temirov put Lokomotiv ahead, 73:72! At that moment, two fans of the Krasnodar team could be clearly heard in the stands of Uralmash arena.
Very soon, Anton Kardanakhishvili returned the lead to his team with a long shot. In a wave of courage, Temirov also decided to throw a 3-pointer – alas, air-ball. Kardanakhishvili found fouls and scored from the line 1 of 2, 73:76.
A rapid exchange of 2-point-worth isolations began: within a minute, Cleveland, Martin, Miller scored in turn, then Douglas made the score 77:80 20 seconds before the siren. And then Yelatontsev couldn’t catch the ball after Miller’s face-off. Is this the end?..
No way! Miller immediately cleared his guilt, stealing the ball from Dalton and scoring with a foul – 79:80. Come on Patrick, hit the bonus free throw and tie it!.. A miss. Our guys quickly fouled on Kardanakhishvili, he scored one of two – but in the remaining 8 seconds our guys couldn’t find a good shot.
For the 6th time this season, Lokomotiv Kuban has lost to a team that is lower in the standings.
But there is no time to be sad! On Tuesday, we will play in Krasnoyarsk. The start of the game against Yenisei is scheduled at 3:30 PM MSK. Go, Loko!