The army team achieved the last – Kommersant
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CSKA won a confident victory in the sixth match of the semi-final series against Lokomotiv-Kuban. The army team easily won with a score of 98:75, leveled the score in the series, and now the winner of a ticket to the VTB United League play-off final will be determined on May 1 in Moscow.
Two weeks ago, when the time for the semi-finals in the VTB United League started, it seemed that nothing interesting could be expected in the CSKA-Lokomotiv-Kuban pair. On the one hand, the army machine, which this season showed some kind of frightening move, on the other hand, a pretty, but unstable Krasnodar club, which in the course of the season, even in matches with outsiders, often simply tortured victories. But after five matches of the semi-final series, one gets the impression that Krasnodar was just hiding something during the championship, acting as Sun Tzu called in The Art of War: “If you are strong, appear weak, and if you are weak, appear strong.”
It is difficult to say whether Alexander Sekulich, Lokomotiv-Kuban’s mentor, is a fan of the work of the ancient Chinese strategist, but in three of the five matches of the series against CSKA he managed to surprise. At the same time, Krasnodar gave three completely different victories. Combat, with a valid ending – in the second match; some kind of crazy, with a dashing pursuit of an opponent hiding behind the horizon – in the third game; suddenly devastating, as if it was not CSKA that opposed them, but a club of a much lower rank – in the fifth. And just like that, the army team found themselves on the verge of the most painful defeat for the entire time that they have been playing in the VTB United League. Even last year’s final, in which CSKA lost to Zenit in seven matches, would not be compared with it. So it’s easy to guess how difficult it was for the army coaching staff in recent days. After all, as CSKA coach Emil Raikovich noted on the official website of the Moscow club, “there is nowhere to retreat.” However, for sure, in the camp of Lokomotiv-Kuban there were enough nerves on the eve of the sixth match. So the game seemed destined to turn into a battle not so much even coaching tactics or players’ skills, but into a confrontation of characters and emotions.
Emotions really had a strong influence on the course of the game. Another thing is that only the guests could boast that they went to the match with the right attitude. One that did not even assume that the seventh match of the series, and CSKA had started selling tickets for it in advance, would not take place. The Krasnodar residents looked as if they had no chance at all to become the authors of a sensation, and they only needed to serve the number.
Rajkovic chose the line with the tightest and very fast defense for this game, and he fully justified himself. Five minutes had not passed, as it became clear that the sensation was at least postponed. After all, almost all attempts by Andrey Martyuk, Akun Devon-Purcell, Jaylen Burford to play the same way as a couple of days ago in Moscow were stifled in the bud. CSKA did not let the enemy get close to its own ring, which was, perhaps, not so difficult, given the attempts of Lokomotiv-Kuban to attack almost without movement. As a result, the Krasnodar players were forced to either throw from uncomfortable positions, or rely on luck with long-range shots. Sometimes it works, but not this time. And then CSKA found an overwhelming advantage in rebounds. This is even without Nikola Milutinov, who appeared on the court after three missed matches only at the very end of the first quarter. And without him, Samson Ruzhentsev, Devonte Kaykok and – all of a sudden – Alexey Shved did an excellent job with rebounds. He played the last match frankly unimportant, but here he again appeared as the most useful team player. He finished the game with a utility factor of 26 (on account of the defender 10 points, 14 assists and 9 rebounds) – and this is the best indicator in the match.
Of course, with such a game, CSKA could not help but start to break away. Sekulich should have resorted to emergency measures towards the end of the first ten minutes, when the advantage of the guests reached 12 points. But he remained relatively calm, and in the end he waited for the fact that after a beautiful dunk performed by Nikita Kurbanov, CSKA’s surplus had already reached 20 points. By the big break Krasnodar had already lost 23 points. And it was actually a sentence. Yes, during this series Lokomotiv-Kuban has already shown that it can win back huge gaps, but this time the team simply did not see any reserves due to which this could be done. So the second half of the match, in which CSKA won with a score of 98:75, turned into a formality and an opportunity for coaches to try out options before the decisive battle.
The seventh match of the series will take place on May 1 in Moscow.
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