Photo: Yevgeny Solodov

On the brink of elimination, 2010-11 VTB League champs grab a win in Moscow to take the semifinal series back home.

Zoran Planinic sank a midrange jumper on Khimki’s last possession to clinch a spectacular 77-75 win in the VTB League semifinal thriller against CSKA Moscow Wednesday. Khimki tied the best-of-five series at two games apiece, forcing the decider on their home court Friday.

The Croatian point guard’s basket capped the visitors’ fourth-quarter rally during which they erased a 12-point deficit after trailing 52-64 at the end of third period. CSKA was in control from the tip-off and seemed to be cruising toward a third consecutive win in five days that would seal its place in the final. The red-and-blues gradually built their lead and finished the first half with a 6-0 run after Khimki head coach Rimas Kurtinaitis had been called for a technical foul with 59 seconds to play. Aaron Jackson converted two free throws, Andrei Vorontsevich scored in the paint and Vladimir Micov beat the buzzer to make it 44-33, CSKA’s first double-digit lead of the night.

After the break Khimki attempted several times to stage a comeback effort, but CSKA kept the opponent at bay, with Micov pacing the scorers with seven points during a three-minute stretch. CSKA dominated the boards, controlled the paint and entered the fourth quarter with a comfortable 12-point margin.

And then it inexplicably collapsed.

“When we just had to finish the work, we made a tremendous mistake and stopped playing defense, allowing Khimki to score 25 points in the last quarter. Now we need to start from zero again, like it happened many times this season,” CSKA head coach Ettore Messina told reporters after the game.

With the season-ending loss only 10 minutes away, Khimki put it all at stake and fought back desperately. Team captain Vitaly Fridzon led the way scoring 10 points in a row – including two three-pointers – early in the fourth quarter.

Khimki took advantage of CSKA’s porous perimeter defense and raided the paint via revealed cracks, while its frontcourt duo of James Augustine and Paul Davis kept cleaning the glass and making easy baskets.

“We allowed many dribble penetrations and our two bigs were moving to try to stop these penetrations and Augustine and Davis were always on the rebound against a short guy. So the problem was that we were not doing a very good job defending the penetration on the perimeter,” Messina explained.

Khimki kept inching closer and grabbed its first lead of the night on an Augustine lay-up with 6:02 remaining, 67-66. In the nail-biting finale the visitors held their nerve: with the game tied at 70, Planinic blocked Micov’s three-point shot, Davis grabbed the rebound and Planinic fed Sergei Monya in the corner who coolly sank his fifth three-pointer to lift Khimki by three, 73-70. The clock stood at 1:54 and Messina took Micov out to bring in his best one-on-one player Sonny Weems. The American forward delivered making a three-point shot to tie the game at 75, but his mission ended right there: on CSKA’s next possession he missed both free throws after being fouled by Planinic. The Croat grabbed the rebound with 20 seconds left, controlled the clock and dribbled to create separation from CSKA center Nenad Krstic. As the 2,500-strong crowd rose to its feet, he sank a jumper with 0.9 seconds remaining. Messina called a timeout, but Micov wasted the last possession on a faked three-point shot, his belated release coming after the final buzzer.

“Judging from my experience as player and coach, if you don’t let your opponent grab more than 10 offensive rebounds and don’t commit more than 10 turnovers yourself, then you’re probably going to win. Today we turned the ball over six times, and CSKA had 12 turnovers. We had 13 offensive rebounds and they had 15 – it’s a small margin. That, I think, was the key to winning today,” Kurtinaitis said at a press conference.

The Lithuanian coach praised Augustine for “energizing the squad,” stressed Fridzon’s key input in making the fourth-quarter comeback and explained why he benched Planinic for nearly six minutes in the last period.

“We have four players spending over 30 minutes on the court in each game. I wanted to take pressure off of Fridzon, so I made Vyaltsev a starter instead and Fridzon sat out almost the entire first quarter. Zoran [Planinic] and I often argue about his playing time, since he’s the kind of player who wants to play 40 minutes night in and night out. After the game I told him, ‘I kept you on the bench, so you could rest, come out fresh and score that last basket!’” a smiling Kurtinaitis explained.

Monya led the scorers with 15 points on 5-of-10 three-point shooting, Planinic and Augustine added 14 and 13 respectively, and Fridzon chipped in 12 for Khimki. CSKA had five players scoring in double figures: Micov (13), Krstic and Vorontsevich (12), Jackson (11) and Weems (10).

Game 5 will tip off at 7 p.m. Moscow time Friday. The winner will face 2012/13 Eurocup winner, Lokomotiv Kuban of Krasnodar, in the final.