Lokomotiv-Kuban beat Zielona Gora at home – 83:76 (20:22, 23:12, 21:17, 19:25).
Top scorers
Lokomotiv-Kuban: Alan Williams (20 + 9 rebounds), Will Cummings(12), Mindaugas Kuzminskas (11 + 10 rebounds + 5 assists), Mantas Kalnietis (10 + 8 assists), Jordan Crawford (10), Stanislav Ilnitskiy (10 + 5 rebounds).
Zielona Gora: Janis Berzins (18 + 7 rebounds), Gabriel Lundberg (15), Geoffrey Grosselle (12 + 6 rebounds), Marcel Ponitka (10 + 5 assists), Cecil Williams (10 + 5 rebounds).
Story
In the beginning of the game Alan Williams did good on the offensive end. Loko center scored 7 points in 2 minutes. Unfortunately, his teammates didn’t support his efforts. Gradually, Zielona Gora started controlling the game. On their roster frontcourt was doing a good job. Geoffrey Grosselle, Janis Berzins and Blake Reynolds scored 16 points in the first quarter combined and took the lead – 22:20. Lokomotiv was paced up via young Russians Sergey Dolinin and Andrey Martyuk. Jordan Crawford, Mindaugas Kuzminskas and Alan Williams made a few regular shots. Will Cummings summed up the first half with spectacular buzzer beater. Loko was up ahead by 9 – 43:34.
Zone defense and three-pointers let Zielona Gora bring intrigue back to the game at some point. But overall Kuban looked much more confident. Third quarter ending was controlled by Loko. 10-point run made their lead double-digit – 64:51.
Key moment
However, Kuban had a hard time till the final seconds. In a slow position game the Poles managed to cut the gap via aggressive defense. 3 minutes before the final buzzer Loko led by 5 points – 71:76. In this situation any accurate shot could decide the faith of the game. This shot was drained by Loko. Open three of Mantas Kalnietis brought the victory to Krasnodar de facto – 79:71. In the remaining time the Poles tried to make a miracle but they had no energy for it.
Hero
Alan Williams was a true-born Loko leader in this game. The center was 1 step away from double-double (20 + 9 rebounds) and became the most efficient player of the game (29).
Stat
46% (12 of 26) – low free throw percentage becomes a weak spot of Zielona Gora this season.
Comments
Lokomotiv-Kuban head coach Evgeny Pashutin:
– I want to thank our fans that came to support us during tough time and gave us energy we needed! We knew that Zielona Gora play aggressively and have many scorers. They average 86 points per game if Polish championship is counted, thus today we did good defensive job, were tight at D in key moments and allowed less than 80 points. I’m satisfied with the way we played tonight, we haven’t avoided mistakes evidently, but this is our first game in the season!
Zielona Gora head coach Zan Tabak:
– Congratulations to the opponent on the victory, I’d like to note that although we lost we showed good basketball tonight. It’s hard to play against VTB United League teams, that participate in Euroleague and EuroCup, especially on the road. The point is not even in the lack of talent or experience of my players, our rivals just stronger physically. We try to keep up with the level of game but we have problems even in number of players, in the last game in Petersburg we lost one important player because of injury. So, basically, I’m satisfied with the way we played considering restricted rotation.
Next
Lokomotiv-Kuban: October 4 vs CSKA
Zielona Gora: October 10 vs Nizhny Novgorod
