Nizhny’ coach Sergei Kozin surprised us by leaving all his legionnaires out of the starting five. At the same time, it was not the nominal center Ilya Karpenkov who went for the starting jump ball, but Igor Volkhin. And although Andrei Martyuk won this ball, it was Karpenkov who scored the first 4 points in the game.
Then Antonius Cleveland opened the scoring for Lokomotiv, Alexander Gudumak performed a great footwork against Volkhin, Patrick Miller intercepted and ran to the defenseless ring, Cleveland deftly passed the ball to Tahjere McCall ‒ 8:5, a good start.
However, the hosts managed to drag our team into a tight and chaotic fight. Sometimes Loko managed to score, like Vladislav Yemchenko at the very end of 24 seconds, but most of the throws by both teams did not reach the target. Be that as it may, Pari NN gradually took the lead. With the score 13:16 in favor of the hosts, debutant John Jenkins scored his first points in the VTB United league, putting in 3 free throws. But by the 1st break it was 16:20 for Nizhny.
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At the beginning of the 2nd period, the ball kept literally falling out of the hands of the Krasnodar team players. Much of this was due to the dedicated defense of Pari NN, but it was still sad to not score anything for 3 1/2 minutes. As soon as Dmitry Uzinsky entered the court, he immediately found a way to deliver the ball to the opponent’s basket; this woke up Cleveland, who scored himself, made a great assist to Gudumak, and blocked a shot by Matic Rebec. But two attacking fouls in a row by our players let Nizhny run away by a double-digit margin – 25:35. During the timeout, which the Lokomotiv coaches immediately took, there was time to check the rather disappointing stats: 9 turnovers, 1 of 6 three-pointers…
And then, as he often does at tough times, Kirill Temirov stepped in: he scratched the ball on the floor after a rebound in the attack, earned a foul and made both free throws. Then McCall showed some extra class: two interceptions in a row and two counterattacks, the second of which was especially spectacular. Lokomotiv did great defense once again, Gudumak cleared the corridor for Emchenko – and the latter reduced the gap to just one possession, 33:35.
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That looked a recent match in Krasnoyarsk, where Loko looked shaky for the first 19 minutes, but managed to get going before the big break and eventually won back the “-21”. Another thing is that Pari NN did not fall apart, like Yenisei did. The last points scored in the first half were for the hosts ‒ 35:39. And after the change of sides, they did not reduce the severity of their pressing at all. Miller’s shot was answered by Alexander Chadov; Cleveland scored from the middle distance ‒ and Volkhin brought his team 4 points in one attack, having scored 1 free throw for a technical foul and another 3 for a foul on his long shot. With the score 41:47, Gudumak did a great job of beating Chadov in attack, after which the margin swung at the “–4” mark for a while.
And then Jenkins showed why he was invited. Within 30 seconds, he, as if from a blueprint, put two 3-pointers on target – with quick release, right from getting the pass. So, Loko is ahead for the first time since the 1st quarter, 51:49. Then McCall did a great defense – he caught Alex Hamilton (who at the beginning of the season, playing for PARMA, was almost the evil genius for Loko) first on a defensive foul, then on an offensive foul, and then forced him to violate the zone rule. In between, Martyuk scored. As a result, Lokomotiv Kuban went into the last break as leaders – 57:53.
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Nizhny rushed to get their lead back, exploiting their strengths: size and hustle. The first two attacks in the 4th quarter ended in vain for Loko, and the opponent tied the game. But Yemchenko forced the opponent to foul, scored his first free throw, and after the second, although missed, the ball bounced to Jenkins, who passed it to Anton Kvitkovskikh on the arc – and the forward, for whom this game was the 200th in the VTB United League, scored a 3-pointer, 61:57! Karpenkov scored 2, and our next attack seemed to end in a miss, but Yemchenko scratched the ball from Rebec and restored the 4-point margin!
Soon Miller increased our advantage to “+6”, and Yemchenko from the free throw line – to “+7”. The intensity increased, and both teams scored very few at that moment. So, when Martyuk made it 70:63 with 3.14 left to play, it looked like a serious bid for victory. The main thing was not to slow down in defense. Uzinsky’s block to Hamilton came in very handy. Chadov scored one point in two attacks in a row, but time was running out quickly, and when Cleveland scored after the good run, it was 72:65 and 40 seconds. Miller extinguished the last attempts of Pari NN to recoup – with an accurate free throw, and then with a steal.
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Now Lokomotiv Kuban is heading to Saratov, where on Saturday, March 29, they will play Avtodor, which has been feeling quite confident lately. The game starts at 3 PM MSK.