Enisey Krasnoyarsk defeated Kalev at home, 99-90 (22-23, 25-21, 20-18, 32-28).
Top Scorers
Enisey: Suleiman Braimoh (30+6 reb), Vladislav Trushkin (18+10 reb), Alexey Vzdykhalkin (13), Tony Taylor (12+5 ast)
Kalev: Mark Tollefsen (28+7 reb), Demonte Harper (26+11 ast), Rain Veideman (14)
Turning Point
Trailing 71-70 early in the 4th quarter, Enisey went on a huge 14-2 run to seize control. Tony Taylor scored eight of his 12 points in that stretch, including vital back-to-back 3-pointers.
Down 11 with less than four minutes to play, Kalev never recovered.
Star
Suleiman Braimoh. Enisey’s Nigerian-American forward put up 30 points on 12-17 shooting to lead Enisey to a crucial win. His previous season-high on offense was 16 points against Nizhny Novgorod.
Impact
After a solid 3-2 start to the season, Krasnoyarsk lost three straight to sink to 9th in the standings. With the win today, Enisey moves up to 8th, keeping pace with fellow playoff hopefuls VEF and Astana.
Kalev, on the other hand, has lost four in a row and sits in 10th place at 2-6.
Stat
10 – Kalev only got 10 points from its bench, despite going with a 10-man rotation.
Quotes
Enisey head coach Oleg Okulov:
– The win maybe wasn’t that pretty, but that’s okay. We’ll take it. It was very important for us to win today, since Kalev is a direct rival. The Estonians haven’t lost big to anyone this season and competed everywhere. In other words, in order to beat this team, we needed to give everything, especially without such an important piece in Elegar.
Kalev head coach Alar Varrak:
– This was a very intense game with a lot of shot attempts. All I can say today is that Enisey scored more than we did.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get a visa in time for our new player, Simmons, and had a hard time under the basket. Braimoh scored a lot of points. On the other hand, Enisey didn’t have Elegar. So it’s not an excuse, just fact.
Up Next
Enisey: December 18 vs. Tsmoki-Minsk
Kalev: December 10 at Avtodor
Snapshot
