Ural Great 75 vs. BS Energy Braunschweig 77

Before the game everything seemed to be in favour of Ural Great Perm: Braunschweig came to Russia without two of their key players, Pete Lisicky and Gordan Firic while their new head coach Henrik Dettman had to stay home in Germany because of visa problems.

In the beginning it was a close game. Up to the seventh minute the home team could not do anything against the zone defense played by Braunschweig.

After a time-out of Ural Great, Aleksandr Belov and Sharon Shason made two three-pointers, which gave Perm a 19:16 lead.

The beginning of the second quarter was all for the visitors. Adam Hall and Zelimir Zagorac made their two-pointers one after the other and Jan Lipke finished another play with a perfect slam dunk.

Coach Belov tried to change pointguards by leaving Bland, Shushakov and Demin on the bench but it didn’t help to organize his team’s play in offence. Only Shason and Hoskin managed to score for the home team.

Result after the first half of the game: 42:40 with a slight advantage for Ural Great.

After the break Braunschweig outscored Perm 13:4 during the first five minutes. Hall did not meet any resistance under the basket and Zagorac scored two shots from the perimeter.

With a score of 46:53 on the board coach Belov asked for a time-out after which Poltavsky, Kurilov, Shushakov and Dedushkin entered the floor. This however did not change the situation on the court: it was only the good performance of Sharon Shason that kept Ural Great in the game.

By the 33rd minute of the game another successful three-point shot by Joakim Blom made the situation dramatic for the home team: 58:67. Hoskin scored 4 unanswered points but quickly after picked up his fourth foul.

Blom and Zagorac established again a double digit lead for Braunschweig: 62:72.

After this Braunschweig seemed to rest on their success and was punished immediately: Ural Great rushed for a 9:0 run and made it a 1-point game, 71:72.

Shason then answered a 3-pointer by Braunschweig's guard Srdjan Djuric with another three-pointer.

With 11 seconds left in the game Hall split a pair of free-throws for Braunschweig, giving the guests a 74:77 lead.

Down by three points, Ural Great had time for one last play. Djuric sent Bland to the line with 6 seconds to go, who made the first and missed the second.

During the following rebound situation the ball finally ended up in Bland's hands, who unfortunately for the home team missed his shot that could have sent both teams into overtime.

Adam Hall, who was named MVP of the game, and Zelimir Zagorac had 19 points apiece for Braunschweig.

Samuel Hoskin led all players with 22 points and added also 10 rebounds.

Quotes Ural Great vs. BS Energy Braunschweig

Oliver Kostic (BS|Energy Braunchweig, coach):
"I am very happy and satisfied because we played very well today. This win is extremely important for us because our team had two very tough weeks before. We lost a lot of games both in the FIBA Europe League and the German League.

Last weekend we changed our head coach. This game was very important for our future because tonight we showed that we can play under pressure and what is most important we proved that we are a real team.

It was very nice to play in a beautiful atmosphere in this gym and I can say that this game was a really good basketball show for the spectators."

Adam Hall (Forward of BS|Energy Braunschweig):
Today our team played as a unit and we managed to play well even under the pressure of the local fans. We all stayed together, everyone made his contribution in the game.

It was a lovely basketball atmosphere, a lot of people, the crowd was very loud and I personally love playing in such an atmosphere."

Sergey Belov (Ural Great Perm, head coach):
"I think our main problem today was that the players did not manage to get over a very hurtful loss in the last moments of the game that we had last weekend playing on the road against Unics Kazan. This put pressure on them.

And the second problem which I already mentioned before is that some players do not understand what Perm basketball atmosphere is and how important this game is for the fans. They do no have the desire to win for their fans."

Sam Hoskin (Center of Ural Great Perm):
We fought hard today and never gave up but we missed too many shots.

I blame myself because I am one of the main players in the team and I missed a lot of easy shots.

Braunschweig did their business tonight and they were very good in that."

MVP of the game – Adam Hall, forward of BS|Energy Braunschweig