The absence of a couple of key players for our opponent, Jalen Adams and Alexander Shashkov, was expected, but when the rosters for the game were released, it turned out that Yevgeny Pashutin had also given a rest to his top scorer, Brendan Adams.
At the start of the game, the Perm team repeatedly ran the same play, sending Gleb Firsov to the hoop. At 7:14, Tomislav Tomović called a timeout, which woke Lokomotiv up: Kirill Temirov hit a three-pointer, Anton Kvitkovskikh scored 7 points in 1,5 minutes, the substitutes made a strong start. Firsov continued to excel, finishing with 15 points in the first quarter, but the Krasnodar team managed to take a lead due to 9 different players having scored, 25:24.
The 2nd period had barely begun when Alen Hadzibegovic became Lokomotiv’s 10th player to score. A three-point shootout began: in the space of a minute and a half, the teams each scored twice from the perimeter – Ivan Yegorov and Viktor Sanders for the visitors, Vsevolod Ishchenko (twice) for the hosts, and in between those shots, Danil Sheyanov‘s floater was added to make it 35:30 in Lokomotiv’s favor. The red-greens seemed to have found a way to stop Firsov, but then Terrell Carter started scoring repeatedly. Eight points from the American center, as well as three-pointers from Yegorov and Alexander Zakharov, helped BETCITY PARMA take a 44:48 lead at the end of the 19th minute. But after another timeout by Tomović, the end of the period remained in Krasnodar’s favor: Patrick Miller and Mike Moore each hit one shot from afar, 50:48.
Lokomotiv’s determination for the 3rd quarter was clearly showed by Hadzibegovic, who dunked on the first play after the game resumed. Kvitkovskikh added 1+1 from the free throw line; Yegorov scored two points on the return possession. But after that, the hosts clamped down on BETCITY PARMA’s offense: intense contact, steals, rebounds, blocks—everything was perfect for the Krasnodar team during this stretch. And this galvanized the attack: Moore and Miller each hit three-pointers, Temirov scored on a fast break, Vince Hunter and Sheyanov dunked hard. Lokomotiv’s lead quickly grew to 21 points—75:54. Lev Svinin, Firsov, and Yegorov managed to reduce the gap a bit, but at the end of the quarter, the hosts’ victory still seemed a matter of technique—77:62.
Carter and Svinin reduced their team’s deficit to “–10”, but Jeremiah Martin started to spin his isos, and by the 35th minute it was 87:70 on the scoreboard. Svinin‘s three-pointer was followed by a series of blocks from Ishchenko and Kvitkovskikh. But these blocks kept turning into rebounds for BETCITY PARMA, who suddenly found themselves within 10 points again – 89:79. Moore missed from long range, Firsov put a Carter‘s miss back to the basket–and with 3 minutes left in the game, Tomović had to call another timeout before the “+8” could shrink even further.
The game resumed, Hadzibegovic missed, the visitors grab the rebound. Perm’s key possession? Lokomotiv manages to limit their attack to Stanislav Ilnitsky‘s corner shot right at the 24-second buzzer–a miss! Hadzibegovic dunks–91:81 with 1:52 remaining. Svinin scores two points, but so does Hadzibegovic. Carter dunks–Kvitkovskikh also dunks. It’s a win, and 3 more points from Svinin don’t change the outcome.
For BETCITY PARMA, the regular season has concluded; they’ll return to Krasnodar in nine days for the first two quarterfinal games. Lokomotiv Kuban has one more regular season fixture ahead of them–against Yenisei on April 22 at 8:00 PM. Come and cheer us on!