UNICS beat Lokomotiv-Kuban and took the lead in the VTB United League championship
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In the first match after a two-week break in the regular VTB United League championship, UNICS beat Lokomotiv-Kuban on its site with a score of 80:76. Thus, the Kazan team took advantage of the misfire that CSKA made the day before in the confrontation with Zenit, and topped the standings. So far, only according to additional indicators. However, UNICS will have a chance to reach clear first place on February 5, when it will play against the army team.
The meetings between UNICS and Lokomotiv-Kuban, in principle, do not require special advertising. Especially after these two teams reached the finals of last season (we remind you that the Kazan team were luckier there). But the Saturday meeting between the Kazan and Krasnodar teams the day before received additional value. The fact is that on Friday, CSKA, which was the leader in the regular season, lost to Zenit with a score of 71:81 (it is noteworthy that this was the third defeat in a row for the army team; this was the first time this had happened to them in the entire time of their performances in the VTB United League). As a result, the army team’s lead over the second-placed Kazan team was reduced to just one victory. That is, UNICS’s victory over Krasnodar put it in first place in the standings.
It is unlikely, of course, that UNICS coach Velimir Perasovich, while preparing the team for the match, somehow focused the players’ attention on their position in the standings.
But the hosts still started the match as if they really wanted to dislodge CSKA from first place. Very quickly, it seemed, even without much effort on the part of the Kazan team, their lead began to acquire threatening parameters for the guests.
Nenad Dimitrijevic showed amazing accuracy, scoring three long-range hits in a row. As a result, UNICS’s lead reached 13 points already in the first quarter. At the beginning of the second it increased to 17!
It was clear, however, that even such a brisk start did not allow Lokomotiv-Kuban to be written off ahead of schedule. The Krasnodar team knows how and loves to win back large deficits (for example, in the previous meeting with UNICS, they won back a gap of two dozen points and pulled out a very difficult match). Well, the sluggish start of the Krasnodar team in the meeting in Kazan could probably be explained by the fact that the team needed some time to adapt to the game without its leader Devon Acuna-Purcell. Without him, the railwaymen’s trademark fast attacks could not be achieved, and UNICS knows how to play positional defense very well.
And indeed, little by little Lokomotiv-Kuban was gaining momentum. One of his players even went into afterburner mode. This is Jaylen Burford, who made shots from any distance (he finished the match with 33 points – the best indicator of the match and repeating the career record for Barford), who did not miss free throws at all, and even actively collected fouls from his opponent. Statistically, compared to Burford, other visiting players did not look the best. But in reality, there was no one there to present any special claims to. They did their job properly and won back those same “minus 17”. At the end of the third quarter, after a successful attack by Okaro White, the score was leveled, and it was a completely different game. Yes, the visitors depended too much on Burford. But UNICS also had its flaws. Perasovich was forced to play the match with a greatly truncated rotation of seven and a half people (during the match, the MVP of February in the league, Dmitry Kulagin, was injured), while the head coach of the guests, Alexander Sekulic, used all the basketball players available to him. And the general overload of the UNICS leaders could well have taken its toll towards the end of the match. In general, it had its effect.
The Kazan team had nothing left of their previous advantage – not even in the score, but in the game. So in the end it all came down to who was luckier. The Kazan residents were a little luckier.
Yes, the same Barford, towards the end of the meeting, tried in a desperate long-range attempt to do something else, but without success.
Thus, UNICS became the leader of the championship. But so far the Kazan team is ahead of CSKA only in additional indicators. UNICS will have a chance to take clear first place on March 5, when the team meets CSKA.
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