Having won the series for third place in four matches against Ural Great

Russian basketball championship

Dynamo Moscow became the bronze medalist of the current Russian Championship. Yesterday, Dynamo won the fourth match of the series for third place against Perm Ural Great on their site - 86:74 - and finished it with a score of 3:1 in their favor.

Having won bronze medals, Dynamo achieved its best result in the Russian Championship in the last three years: the previous two seasons it remained below the medal list. However, this progress is unlikely to satisfy the Dynamo management, who hoped that the team, strengthened in the off-season by several expensive newcomers and eminent coach Svetislav Pesic, would be able to compete for gold. The fact that Dynamo was unable to realize the club’s ambitions this season became clear long before the decisive stage of the championship. The Muscovites spent the regular championship unsuccessfully, finishing in fifth place, which meant that in the semi-finals they would have to meet the best club in Europe, CSKA.

Dynamo played the playoffs without Pesic, who was fired for the club’s failure in the Russian championship and failure in the ULEB Cup (Dynamo finished third in it, although they hoped to win). The Serb's replacement, Sergei Bazarevich, who was entrusted with being the head coach of Dynamo for the second time (in 2003, he led the revived team to the super league), did the maximum possible. In the 1/4 finals, Dynamo defeated a very uncomfortable opponent - Triumph near Moscow, and in the match for third place, after the predicted loss in the semi-finals to the army team with a score of 0: 3, they defeated the unyielding Ural Great, which became the main sensation of the play-offs .

The management of the Perm club, despite the team’s failure in the fight for bronze, should, on the contrary, be satisfied with the results of the season. Nobody considered Ural Great to be the main contenders for medals, and in February the club was left without a head coach after the Croatian Drazen Anzulovich fled Perm without permission. However, Ural Great had a great play-off under the leadership of Russian coach Roman Dvinyaninov. In the quarter finals, he knocked out Kazan UNICS, which was ranked much higher than Perm, and in the semifinals he gave a real fight to another Russian giant, Khimki. The Moscow region club managed to put the finishing touches on the stubborn Ural Great, largely due to the fact that Perm leaders Andrew Wisniewski and Brindley Wright were sent off due to a fight in the fourth match of the series. The disqualification of both continued for two more matches of the “bronze” series, and this seemed to doom Ural Great to defeat in it.

But the Permians presented another surprise, defeating the Muscovites in the first match 92:68 and giving hope for intrigue in this confrontation. Dynamo, however, only needed one loss to really get ready for the fight. In the next three meetings, the Muscovites had a big advantage and yesterday they celebrated winning bronze medals on their site.

The outcome of this series, as well as the final of the Russian Championship, does not in any way affect the European Cup prospects of its participants. Both clubs, as well as fifth-placed Triumph, will play in Europe's second most prestigious club competition, the ULEB Cup, which begins next season with two preliminary rounds. “Khimki”, as the second team in the Russian Championship, and “Dynamo”, which earned this right even earlier, taking third place in the ULEB Cup, will enter the fight from the main stage of the competition - the group tournaments. “Ural-Great” will begin its performance from the second qualifying round, and “Triumph” from the first.

Anna Kommersant-Nefedova

Dynamo reached bronze

Dynamo reached bronze