Overtime brings UNICS closer to gold
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UNICS was one step away from winning the VTB United League championship final. He took the lead in the “golden” series of up to four victories against the Lokomotiv Kuban club – 3: 1, having won against Krasnodar on a foreign site in overtime with a score of 90:88.
For a couple of minutes of this match, the Krasnodar fans had to look at the game of their team with pleasure and hope. Well, yes, we lost the previous game in the most offensive way, let the opponent go ahead in the series. But after all, it seems that they drew the right conclusions from the defeat. Here they are – anger, intensity from the first seconds. Such Lokomotiv should not give UNICS a head start.
But a little time passed – and the pictures of two days ago returned. Anger, aggression transformed into fuss and losses (in the first quarter, the hosts got as many as seven of them, and many different players faked, including such experienced ones as Zakhar Vedischev), and the accuracy was so low that it was hard to imagine how this club knocked out by CSKA in the previous round.
In the starting ten-minute period, Lokomotiv converted 20% of two-pointers, and of course, no outbursts like Andrei Martyuk’s successful exit from the bench could help him stay next to much more accurate Kazan players.
In the second quarter, Lokomotiv at some point seemed to start up, throwing game chaos into the trash and forcing UNICS to twitch. But Kazan’s coach Velimir Perasovich took a time-out, slightly reconfiguring the defense, and right after it, the guests, thanks to Louis Labery and Daryl Macon, scored two three-pointers in a row and again pushed Krasnodar away. Lokomotiv still didn’t do well. Dmitry Uzinsky smeared from the surest situations, the protocol continued to be replenished with marks about Krasnodar mistakes. The advantage of 16 points, accumulated by UNICS by the big break, quite adequately reflected the salt of this game, in which it was difficult for those who are not indifferent to Lokomotiv to see even a dim ray of light.
But he suddenly appeared. “Locomotive” taught that he knows how to spurt from an ambush. But this spurt was absolutely gorgeous. And Perasovich, seeing how his opponents slowly come to life, it seems to be in vain that he did not take a break: the absence of pauses in the game was only to the benefit of the Krasnodar courage. Two hits from afar by Alexander Shcherbenev, and a spectacular parachute combination topped by Chris Horton’s dunk, and other vivid episodes, the heroes of which were Lokomotiv players, became its material expression. And just a gigantic, two dozen points, the difference was melting like April ice. By the end of the ten-minute period, Lokomotiv was one three-pointer away from UNICS.
The outcome of this match hung on a thin thread, which still refused to break. Although in the end Lokomotiv found itself on the verge of losing: “minus three”, and time remains for the only full-fledged attack. But Krasnodar played it well, and Devon Akun-Purcell scored from afar.
In general, the match taxied to overtime, in which UNICS was leading all the time, and Lokomotiv flatly refused to give up, trying to pull off the trick with the chase on the flag. But now he failed.
Kazanians were one step away from winning the VTB United League championship. They can win gold already on Tuesday if they beat Lokomotiv in the fifth match of the final at home.
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