Dmitry Kulagin stars as Russia win the bronze medal; Beat Argentina 77-72: FIBA U-19 World Championship
Dmitry Kulagin played for 38 minutes and racked up a game high 24 points as Russia won the bronze medal at the 2011 FIBA U-19 World Championship, after beating Argentina by 77-72 in a thriller.
Kulagin contribution also includes eight rebounds, four assists and one steal. His shooting percentage from the field was 50 percent and from the charity stripe, he was perfect. Besides Kulagin, forwards Sergey Karasev and Aleksandr
Gudumak also tallied 17 points apiece.
Russian, who out did USA in the quarter finals with some astonishing perimeter shooting, did not get it right against Argentina. Russians struggled to dominate Argentina from the perimeter, but Kulagin and company kept driving
to the lane and outperformed the Argentineans with an exceptional 93.8 percent of shooting from the paint area.
Kulagin enabled the Russians to tie the scores at 19-19 at the end of the first quarter, with his eight points from inside.
That fired up Argentineans came hard on the Russians in the second quarter. Pablo Perez came off the bench and made Argentina’s early struggles look like a distant memory. Perez launched three long range missiles that hit the bulls’
eye and stretched Argentina’s lead to five points.
Russia failed to slash the lead down until in the last few seconds of the half when Kulagin appeared on the scene and hit an off balance three that cut the deficit to five.
Argentina led Russia by 40-35 going into the third quarter. The Russians slashed back the lead to four points early. Emiliano Basabe and Luciano Masserelli however led the South American counter at that point and launched a barrage
of three-pointers that extended their lead to 11.
This forced Russian coach to take an early timeout and it worked for them. Kulagin and Aleksandr Gudumak set the court ablaze by thumping 10 of Russia’s next 12 points and cut the short the deficit to three by the time, the third
period finished.
Karasev tied the scores at 53 in the initial minutes of the final quarter with his second three-pointer. The trey ignited a ferocious battle of domination and the ball swung widely from one end to the other. In the next few minutes,
the lead changed hands on two occasions and scores were tied once
Kulagin stepped up at that juncture and shot his second three-pointer of the game to give Russia a clear advantage. In the ensuing passage, the Russian defence stood firm against the late Argentinean charge to steal the victory
by five points.
Franco Giorgetti led the Argentineans with 18 points and three rebounds. Giorgetti shot seven of 10 from the field and four of six from the three-point range, during his 27 minutes stay on the court. Team-mate Perez chipped in
with 13 points, had three rebounds and one assist.
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