By Stelios Toromanidis/ info@eurohoops.net
The team from Krasnodar became the first to qualify in the playoffs of the Euroleague, taking part in the competition by means of a wild card, vindicating the organizers for their choice.
The roster was very rich since the beginning of the year. It goes without saying that such a big success is not achieved… by chance. On the contrary, it involves a methodical approach and a series of right moves.
The granite defense, the instrumental Delaney and Claver’s improvement
The powerful man of the Russians, Andrey Vedischev, made a wise, as it turned out, move by hiring the European champion with Olympiacos in 2013, Georgios Bartzokas. The Greek coach moved along two axes.
The first has to do with defense. He created an extremely athletic team with guards like Draper, a specialist in pressing on the ball, in order to impede the opponents’ circulation of the ball, and he acquired semi-big centers like Singleton and Randolph, who can play every style of defense (switches, dynamic help on the guards). A result of all this is that “Loko” has by far the best defense in the competition, conceding 68,4 points per game.
The second goes by the name of Malcolm Delaney. The American, whom Bartzokas had a crush on since the time he was coaching Olympiacos, is the alpha and omega in his team’s offense. He leads in points (16 per game), in assists (5,9 per game), in ranking (19,7 per game) and he’s one of the MVP candidates in the entire Euroleague.
A big part of the success is also the great Top 16 the Spanish forward Victor Claver is having, with 10,4 points, 6,6 rebounds (leading in this particular category) and a ranking of 14,9.
Everything of course is based on the team work and the great job done by Giorgos Bartzokas. Lokomotiv is the team with the best % of assisted points in the Top 16 (67%) and is the only team that allows less than 100 points/100 possessions (97,1) in the Top 16 with the next one (Panathinaikos) having 100,8! Moreover, the Russians force their opponents to the most turnovers (15,8 per game) in the Top 16!
Kuban’s roster is full and lucrative but all the above are made by hard work and team spirit.
They’re looking towards… Berlin
In this way Lokomotiv finished first in their group in the regular season with an 8-2 record, ahead of Barcelona and Panathinaikos, while they continued unabated in the Top 16, thus finding themselves a breath away from the home court advantage that will be the first step toward qualifying for the Final Four in Berlin.
Inexperienced in the Euroleague
As for the club’s history in the Euroleague, this can be summarized, outside of the current season, in the 2013-14 season, with Pashutin coaching and players like Brown, Kalnietis, Hendrix and Simon. Then, the… journey had ended at the Top 16, with the mentality of the team being completely different, putting greater emphasis on offense. The overall record was 13-11 at fifth place of their group in the Top 16.
| SEASON | KNOCKOUT
STAGE |
RECORD | WIN
RATE |
| 2013-14 | Top 16 | 13-11 | 54,2% |
| 2015-16 | To be continued… | 17-6 | 73,9% |