In the central match of the week, the Lokomotiv-Kuban basketball club beat Zenit
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In the central match of the week of the VTB United League regular season, Lokomotiv-Kuban hosted Zenit. Both the vice-champion of last season and the winner of the championship before last started the current championship not brilliantly, which gave their head-to-head confrontation additional weight. The Krasnodar team were luckier this time, showing enviable patience and eventually winning with a score of 69:67.
The match between Lokomotiv-Kuban and Zenit is an event that sells itself on its own and does not require additional advertising. However, if someone not immersed in the world of Russian basketball were to simply look at the current championship table, he would be quite surprised by the excitement around the game. After all, the Krasnodar team lost four of the five games they played (they never started the championship this bad). Zenit’s start turned out better – three wins in five meetings, but still not what is expected from a team with championship ambitions.
As a result, it turned out that in one of the central matches of October the teams in 12th and 6th places played.
But, frankly speaking, it’s also not worth overestimating the misfires made at the start of the season. You may recall that the last season for Lokomotiv-Kuban also did not start very well (two wins in six games), which did not prevent it from reaching the play-off final.
Let us note that this season the Krasnodar and St. Petersburg residents have already met — in the final of the United League Super Cup. Then they put on a show, the outcome of which (85:83 in favor of Zenit) was decided only ten seconds before the siren. And, without a doubt, almost 5 thousand spectators gathered in the Krasnodar Basket Hall expected the same level of competition and performance.
But both teams had serious problems with their performance, which appeared immediately. During half of the first quarter, the opponents did not score even a dozen points between them. Mainly due to the fact that the coaches of Lokomotiv-Kuban and Zenit, Alexander Sekulic and Javi Pascual, relied on a super-tense defense. It’s as if an army stormed the gates of a medieval castle not with a ram, but with the help of another gate.
As a result, what reigned on the site was not a bright extravaganza with champagne and bubbles, but some kind of exhausting, thick, like jelly, work.
Well, yes, Zenit looked a little better. Mainly thanks to Sergei Karasev, who produced a series of three consecutive accurate hits from a distance. They gave Zenit a five-point lead, which neither the guests could increase nor the hosts could win back. Perhaps the St. Petersburgers could have turned this “fragmentary” into something more solid, but they clearly missed Tom Ertel. The Frenchman missed the match for health reasons, and Trent Fraser, who took over his job, although he played a good match (he scored 19 points), he could not lead the game at Ertel’s level.
The team coaches needed to somehow cheer up their players, and here Sekulic turned out to be more effective. After a long break, the Krasnodar team began to move. They kept attempts to attack from distance to a reasonable minimum (the railroaders’ three-pointers were poor – 3 hits out of 18 attempts) and used the strengths of their leaders Jaylen Burford and Okaro White, who scored hard points. And, of course, Zakhar Vedishchev flashed, making his way through the guests’ defense through some secret paths and eventually becoming the most productive player of his team (17 points).
But don’t think that all this led to Lokomotiv-Kuban taking flight. He just drove a little faster, but not enough to resolve all the issues. So the match had no chance of not reaching a fighting ending. Here it is already done. It is difficult to say who became her hero. Either Vladislav Yemchenko, who made the most important interception and scored with the score 66:65 in favor of the hosts, or Vedishchev, who, despite the excitement, hit an important free throw, or Kirill Elatontsev, who took the most important, essentially winning, rebound. Be that as it may, Lokomotiv-Kuban beat a formidable opponent – 69:67 – and, perhaps, began to return to its normal level.
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