Samara immediately showed that, despite being last, they weren’t a team to mess around with – the visitors took a 9:2 lead by the 3rd minute. But Lokomotiv’s offense gradually picked up the pace: Kirill Temirov hit a 3-pointer, Patrick Miller scored after a 360-degree spin, Ilya Popov tied the score with his 2+1, 14:14. Kassius Robertson, coming off the bench, both scored and assisted. In the final 3 minutes of the 1st quarter, Loko scored almost as many points as in the first 7, taking the 29:17 lead.
The 2nd quarter started promisingly: Vince Hunter showed great footwork and scored. Soon, Vsevolod Ishchenko, who had finally returned to action after an injury, added 2 points more. After Hunter and Makar Konovalov played a quick combination, the score became 36:22 in Lokomotiv’s favor. But Samara managed to maintain this pace, and the gap between the teams not only didn’t widen, but gradually narrowed – by the big break, it was 46:37.
Immediately after the restart, Samara cut the deficit to 6 points with a corner long shot from Nikita Mikhailovsky. Lokomotiv lost the ball on the neat attack, but Miller quickly regained possession and passed to Temirov, who posted the first slam dunk of his senior career!
That launched our team’s good attacking run. By the 24th minute, Temirov‘s 3-pointer made it 58:46. Mikhailovsky responded with a long-range shot of his own, but Hunter immediately followed with his 3-pointer. Daniil Kasko entered the game, and added a good amount of hustle. Ishchenko increased the gap to +19 from beyond the arc, Kasko‘s layup made it +21, but the last scoring action of the quarter was up to Samara – young Artyom Pivtsaikin scored from the same corner as Mikhailovsky at the beginning of the period, 78:58 in favor of Loko.
Despite their significant deficit, the visitors didn’t give up – their 6Ж0 run forced Anton Yudin to take a timeout. Konovalov scored on a fast break, Popov got 2 points despite hard contact, but Samara surged again, this time scoring 7 points in a row – and Loko’s coaches called a 2nd timeout. After the game resumed, Anton Kvitkovskikh slammed a tomahawk dunk, but that didn’t dampen Samara’s spirit: the gap soon narrowed to 10 points, and a little later to 9 – after a long-range shot by Dmitry Cheburkin, making it 89:80 with 2.5 minutes left.
But Lokomotiv didn’t allow a clutch: Miller found a free Kvitkovskikh under the hoop (it was Patrick‘s 12th assist, a new season-high!), Hunter assisted to Anton on the next attack, and then Temirov scored his second slam dunk of the game (and his career) – 95:80. The only question remaining was whether Lokomotiv would reach 100 points, and if so, who would do it.
Hunter did it, putting back his own missed free throw. It’s also worth noting that 7 players from the Krasnodar team scored 10 or more points.
Now Lokomotiv Kuban will play 3 away games: on October 29 against Avtodor, on November 1 against CSKA, and on the 4th in Belgrade against Mega as part of the intra-season Winline Basket Cup.