To win the championship, “Bars Wings” now need skill and luck

What was in the previous episodes?

The season in wheelchair basketball opened with a qualifying round, based on the results of which two of the eight starting teams were eliminated, leaving the other six to fight for the podium of honor. The fact that “Bars Wings” took third place based on the results of the starting round did not have much significance, since it brought no points to anyone's piggy bank, turning into a warm-up.

Then there was a round in Kazan, based on the results of which the teams gained points for the places they ultimately took, and here not everything was smooth. Having won three matches, “Bars Wings” played quite confidently in the penultimate one with the main competitor for victory — St. Petersburg's “BasKI," controlling the game and the score, especially since the gap reached a double-digit figure (27:13), but in the final period they began to yield. 50:45 before entering the home stretch turned into 58:59, when just before the finish St. Petersburg went ahead, after a timeout.

An accurate shot by Vasily Kochetkov again returned us a minimal advantage. But the opponents answered with their own, and the final act was an inaccurate shot by Vsevolod Salin from under the hoop and 60:61.

From Turkey with a victory

After this Kazan returned its winning attitude, winning in tournaments in the 3x3 format, went to a training camp in Turkey, beating the national team of that country with a score of 68:67, and its second squad — 76:74. After which it flew into the St. Petersburg round, which started with our rout of Ulyanovsk's “Volga” 94:35. Moreover, the Ulyanovsk team resisted us with a full roster, since later they would be pursued by offensive losses from among the players. The hosts of the court also confidently beat their opponent — “Legion” from Nyagan, and there was a certain struggle only in the confrontation of Moscow and Tyumen, where the team from the capital of Russia looked stronger.

The Muscovites are on the whole a solid team, but in the confrontation with us this solidity was not noticeable — 78:44. St. Petersburg routed Tyumen, and the most exciting game came out based on the results of the rivalry of Nyagan and Ulyanovsk. The northerners led 60:57, Ulyanovsk again approached to within a point — 60:59, after which the basketball player of “Legion” scored one free throw out of two — 61:59. Then the teams exchanged mutual attacks without scoring points, ending the game with a desperate shot by a Ulyanovsk player from beyond the six-meter line that did not reach its target.

There was a struggle, as we like it, and in the third round, unfortunately, there were injuries. They did not affect only the match of “Bars Wings” with “Legion” from Nyagan — 86:20. In the derby of the two capitals St. Petersburg beat Moscow 68:48, allowing the opponents to make a spurt in points at the end — 2:8. “Falcon” lost Evgeny Solodovnikov because of an injury. But “Volga” did not simply lose to Tyumen's “Chance” 47:60. Their Rustam Kuramshin also suffered in the confrontation with Andrey Bondarenko, and Andrey Kafiyatullov — with Ilshat Sagitov.

What was that?

“Bars Wings” strictly asked the Tyumen team, leaving it not a single chance, 77:28. Ulyanovsk in the penultimate round demonstrated how one can play the whole match with five players, having drawn St. Petersburg by lot. A team physically less well prepared might have tired already at the greeting ceremony, when it had to greet the full roster of the St. Petersburg team of 12 people. As they say, one can lose everything except honor, although Ulyanovsk could have not come out for the game, recording a 0:20 defeat in the table. It could, but it did not, therefore we sing a song to the madness of the brave. And in the confrontation of Moscow and Nyagan we state that the capital team was stronger by the score with a gap of exactly three times.

In the Siberian derby Tyumen was stronger than Nyagan, the Muscovites outplayed Ulyanovsk to the accompaniment of St. Petersburg rain, which began precisely for the final round, which, in addition to the weather customary for the city on the Neva, promised an explosion of emotions on the parquet. But, as they say, our expectations are our problems.

St. Petersburg managed to maximally strengthen interest in the game. A commentator at the microphone, a broadcast with replays, a screen with changing current photographs of the players of the St. Petersburg team and moments of its matches, television at the sideline filming a feature about the round, fans who filled the stands. All of them became witnesses of how the Kazan player Vsevolod Salin opened the score, then increased it after converting two free throws and a foul by the captain of the St. Petersburg team Evgeny Ermolinsky. And two more points that equalized the score in the match — 6:6. The demonstration of Salin's scoring qualities against St. Petersburg continued until the moment Vasily Kochetkov launched a shot from beyond the 6-meter line into the hoop, and Albert Bagamanov and Vladimir Kuchin joined the process of scoring points.

In other words, there was a full demonstration of the variability of Kazan attacks, which can score from afar, like Kochetkov, or from the middle line, like Bagamanov, on a drive, like Kuchin, and from everywhere, like Salin. This led to a minimal advantage at the end of the first period, 17:16. The main thing is that an impression formed that the relatively young Kazan is in good shape today, and the frankly veteran St. Petersburg may not withstand such pressure. But wheelchair basketball is not classical basketball, in which a team with the most experienced person on the court in the person of the 43-year-old Kazan player Vasily Kochetkov will definitely “outrun” a team where his peer and namesake Vasily Laykov (also 42 years old), on the contrary, is the youngest in his collective.

At the ball of luck everyone dances beautifully

The long-time coach of Kazan's UNICS, Stanislav Eremin, is remembered for the aphorism: “At the ball of luck everyone dances beautifully.” Translated from the poetic to the sporting, one can do the most incredible things when the psychological burden does not weigh on you. One can score three-pointers when your team leads by a couple of dozen points, as Dinar Kamaliev did against “Chance," who in the game with St. Petersburg stood at the free-throw line and did not hit either of two. Being closer to the hoop, but under the burden of responsibility. What is the free-throw line even — the players of “Bars Wings” missed from under the hoop with such regularity that it was as if they had preserved the virus of missing in the last seconds of the match in Kazan, placed it in a little jar, brought it to St. Petersburg and uncorked it exactly before the second quarter of the match with “BasKI.”

Salin, having scored 6 points in a row at the start of the game, then was remembered for a block shot and the two points scored after it on a fast break. The rest were not remembered for anything at all. Except perhaps for another accurate three-point shot by Kochetkov? Or two points by Galstyan, earned on a break after a magnificent pass by Kochetkov? An accurate shot by Kaynov, scored immediately after coming onto the court? Yes, but that is all that can be remembered as positive from the match, when the struggle under the boards was lost. In the confrontation of the first numbers they yielded, and in shots from under the hoop our guys on that day showed a record indicator of inaccuracy.

Ermolinsky, on the eve of his 50th anniversary, went on a break from Galstyan and rebounded the ball, which should be the prerogative of Salin, who yields to the St. Petersburg veteran. Ermolinsky earned a free throw at the start of the game and rode with it to the end, to which Salin could not remain on the court, having dropped out for five fouls long before the final whistle.

Under the gaze of Leningrad basketball legends

The defeat in Kazan, which took place in June, when the advantage at the end was lost, and Salin did not convert a shot from under the hoop, resembles the scenario of last season, only with a minus sign. Then the “basket” Timofeev missed at the end of the game, being under our hoop, and earlier there was a rout of the St. Petersburg team inflicted on it by the Kazan team, which seemed the last in our confrontation. The opponent is growing old, we are maturing, filling with strength and the necessary experience. The main thing is that with a pleasing periodicity we began to win in matches when everything is decided by one shot.

But only a year passed, and the starting five of our competitors played the whole match with a much younger Kazan, repeating the feats of the Ulyanovsk team. Only they had nowhere to go, since the substitutes' bench turned out to be empty, while St. Petersburg had no room for an apple to fall there. In fact, as in the stands of the sports complex of the Kondrashin Academy.

The real resistance in the duel ceased, it seems, at the beginning of the third period, when Litvyak was accurate and the score on the board was 23:32. Later there was a moment when, after Ermolinsky's shot, the ball hit the rim of the hoop, soared upward and rushed into the basket. A moment from the category of those about which they say “And the walls help.” And how could they not help, if the hall of the St. Petersburg team was decorated with portraits of the great Leningrad basketball players — Stanislav Gelchinsky (on October 6 he would have turned 91), Andrei Makeev, Vladimir Kondrashin (who carried out the movement upward). The coach Gennady Shchetinin managed to instill in his charges faith that at 47 and a half years old (the average age of the players of the starting five) the struggle for first place does not end, and so came the third consecutive victory in the round. If it marks an overall victory based on the results of the whole championship, then this, as they say, will be in the name of basketball.