KHIMKI (Superleague) - Fotis Kacikaris hailed his Dynamo St Petersburg side's never-say-die attitude after they defied the odds to take their Russian Superleague semi-final with BC Khimki to a deciding game.
Dynamo came from behind to snatch Game Four 88-84 - despite losing three of the four quarters - squaring the series 2-2 and bringing Khimki back to St Petersburg for Game Five.
"I've been trying to instil a winning mentality in our players since day one and I'm really proud of them," head coach Kacikaris said.
"I always try to inspire the players to never surrender, play until the last second. Happily, they've heard me.
"Khimki are very strong and experienced opponents but we believed we were able to win the game and level the score in the series and we did that."
Kelly McCarthy scored 19 points, Damir Milkovic added 17 and Jerry McCallow scored 16 for Dynamo, while Melvin Booker collected 18 points and seven rebounds for the hosts, Oscar Torres adding 14 points and six rebounds.
Khimki head coach Sergei Elevic admitted his side failed to handle the pressure of being on the brink of a final against defending champions CSKA Moscow.
"I suppose the weight of responsibility hindered us," he said. "Many of the players couldn't handle that nervous pressure.
"We didn't play badly during the first half but lost the third quarter by 13 points due to our own mistakes - conceding easy balls, allowing our opponents to score many three-point throws.
"It's necessary to show our best in such games but did not do that enough. We tried to save the game in the end but failed to do that and now we'll do our best to win on Saturday in St Petersburg."
CSKA wrapped up a 3-1 series victory with a 73-69 defeat of UNICS Kazan on Thursday, coincidentally the same scoreline with which they won the Euroleague final last month.
CSKA head coach Ettore Messina admitted his side made hard work of the victory.
"We had very strong opponents in this series," he said. "UNICS forced CSKA to perform to our best. It took us 20 minutes to settle our play in defence."
UNICS head coach Stanislav Eremin was proud of his side's effort, saying: "I'm grateful for our players for the performance they showed. They had one task - to
play for a win.
"We were close but just failed to achieve it."
PA Sport