Moscow will host regular season game on Saturday.
MBA (Moscow) vs Lokomotiv Kuban (Krasnodar)
Time: 19:30 (Moscow time)
Place: Russia, Moscow, Basket Hall
Broadcast: Match! Igra, Start Triumph, League website
MBA: The loss against Avtodor was the Moscow team’s fourth in a row. As a result, MBA is stuck at the bottom of the standings. While the gap from the Playoff zone doesn’t look catastrophic (just 2 wins), Vasily Karasev team has a very challenging schedule. The Moscow team has 5 games against Playoff zone teams. Even Daniil Kasatkin and Andrey Lopatin performances didn’t help MBA against the Saratov team. The three-point shooting was poor (8 of 24 three-pointers), but the head coach main complaint must have been the team’s defense, which allowed opponents to score 80 points with good percentage.
Lokomotiv Kuban: In the game against PARMA, the Krasnodar team confirmed two trends. Loko never gives up and use emotions to make comebacks. But if the opponent manages to get the Krasnodar team into a slow game, Aleksander Sekulic team can’t always change the game. The Perm team managed to shut down Lokomotiv free zones. Still, the team’s fans have reasons to be positive. First, team leader DeVaughn Akoon-Purcell missed the game in Perm. Second, Andrey Martiuk has been showing great basketball in recent games. Starting with the Russian Cup game against Irkut, the young bigman started getting more playing time, and he responded with a great offensive performance – 14 points against Irkut, 15 points each against UNICS and PARMA.
