By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Lokomotiv Kuban draws closer to gaining the home-court advantage in the Euroleague playoffs. The Russian team defeated Unicaja Malaga 81 – 60 and now needs to finish the Top 16 with another win in order to enter the Top 8 from a position of strength.
With Malcolm Delaney scoring, plus creating at will (15 points, 10 assists) and his teammates firing from all corners of the 3-point line (15 in total), coach Bartzokas’ team overpowered its guests who obviously didn’t travel to Krasnodar just for the experience, as it is obvious by the halftime score (39 – 35) as well. But in the end, the Andalusians proved unable to stop their opponents’ firepower.
Another thing that greatly hurt the Andalusians’ chances to take something from their game, was their inability to deliver on offense during the last quarter. They spent 6 minutes without scoring any point at all, in a period where the hosts made a 10-0 run, to get a 15-point difference, 72 – 57, 4 minutes before the end of the match. Mindaugas Kuzminskas, the best player of Malaga, with 16 points, dropped a downtown shot for the 72-60, but consecutive baskets by Ryan Broekhoff increased the difference even more for his team.
The huge contrast in the two teams assist/turnover ratio played a huge part in the final outcome, since Lokomotiv Kuban dished an incredible number of 25 assists (quite a lot for 81 points scored), while making only 9 turnovers. Meanwhile Unicaja Malaga was completely negative in that department, having 19 turnovers and 11 assists.