Loko come back from ‘-13′ to mark UNICS’ first defeat

Loko come back from ‘-13′ to mark UNICS’ first defeat

Lokomotiv-Kuban outplayed UNICS at home – 93:81 (15:28, 26:11, 28:26, 24:16)

Top scorers
Lokomotiv-Kuban: Kevin Hervy (22 + 8 rebounds + 3 steals), Jordan Crawford (22), Alan Williams (16 + 13 rebounds), Mantas Kalnietis (10 + 9 rebounds + 14 assists).
UNICS: John Brown (18 + 8 rebounds), Jordan Morgan (18 + 8 rebounds), Jamar Smith (16).

Story
Lokomotiv-Kuban (4-1) and UNICS (2-0) have had a great start in the League and were ready to by tested by a fierce rival. The teams didn’t have mucn success in the offense in the early part of the first quarter. Kazan boosted up first. John Brown scored 6 points in 2 minutes, and the guests made 8:0 run. Loko still had been experiencing troubles scoring, no distance shots were good. The guests cheered up by the end of the period, trailing by 13, when Grigory Motovilov assisted Andrey Martyuk for a 3-pointer, forced a turnover a scored 2 in a fastbreak.

UNICS started the second quarter with a double-digit lead (28:15), but the game changed. The White-Greens became the ones who suffer unsuccessful offense – 2 points in 5 minutes. Kuban were gaining speed, and then Jordan Crawford fired up 9 points in 90 seconds: 18:4 run and the lead. The Red-Greens couldn’t improve the run. Nate Wolters’ three-pointer cheered up UNICS, so the halftime was marked by 41:39 for Loko.

Both teams demonstrated great performance after the break. Kevin Hervey led Loko with 10 points in minutes, but Evgeny Kolesnikov levelled the game (28:26) before the final quarter. Hervey was on fire and made 3 long distance shots in the first minutes of the fourth quarter.

After a time-out called by Dimitris Priftis, Isaiah Canaan made two from beyond the arc to bring the hope back.

Key moment
Canaan continued with a role of team leader, but after his turnover, Crawford got the double digits back for Loko – 85:75. Another bad possession, fast break with Crawford’s three-pointer and he won ex-NBA players duel. Krasnodar took full control of the 3 minutes before the buzzer. 93:81 and Loko’s fourth consecutive win.

Hero
Kevin Hervey. His series of distance shots (5 of 10 from the arc) in the second half created decisive gap. Hervey scored 22 points, 8 rebounds and 3 steals.

Stat
13-points lead held by UNICS during the game. Krasnodar managed to come back and get the 5th win.

Comments
Lokomotiv-Kuban head coach Evgeny Pashutin:
“Congrats to the guys. Thanks to the fans for coming here and supporting us in these hard times! We started slowly, without reaction, we let UNICS feel the rhythm. But we came back, improved defense, controlled the snipers of opponents, improved rebounding. We showed our signature basketball after the halftime, good defense, good energy, 27 assists which is difficult against UNICS. We had real teamplay, which is our strength. We’ll work and go forward, we’ve made another step to our goal.”

UNICS head coach Dimitris Priftis:
We’ve had good first quarter, didn’t allow many points, but later encountered troubles in offense. It was a bad game in terms of scoring. We missed a lot of open shots. In the second half, we allowed Loko’s fast breaks, even though we’d known they’d do that. Congrats to the opponents, and we have to tackle our defensive troubles immediately and get ready for the next game.”

Next
Lokomotiv-Kuban: November 15 at Atodor.
UNICS: November 14 at Zielona Gora.

Photo01/11/2020 Lokomotiv-UNICS 93:81