Kazan, St. Petersburg and Krasnodar will host regular season games on Thursday.
UNICS (Kazan, Russia) vs MINSK (Minsk, Belarus)
Time: 19:00 (Moscow time)
Place: Russia, Kazan, Basket Hall
Broadcast: Match! Igra, League website
UNICS: Mini road trip to Astana and Yekaterinburg was successful for the Kazan team. UNICS dominated in rebounds in Astana (37 rebounds versus 22), turning Royce Hamm and Devin Davis out of the game. Nenad Dimitrijevic didn’t play against Uralmash, but the defense became an X-factor and let Velimir Perasovic team to stay at the 2nd place in the standings. The Kazan team has 3 straight wins, next home games versus MINSK and Samara can prove the best scoring League team status.
MINSK: Game in Samara didn’t become the turning point for MINSK. After parting ways with Rostislav Vergun, the team’s losing streak continues and now it’s 17 games without winning. MINSK had played with UNICS at the beginning of the season, The Kazan team set the season-high in points scored (which hasn’t repeated or beaten yet), and the Minsk team scored only 47. But the team is in process on finding the offensive game: the team averaged 70.1 points in the last 5 games. After Kazan, MINSK will face CSKA in Belarus.
Zenit (St. Petersburg, Russia) vs Astana (Astana, Kazakhstan)
Time: 19:30 (Moscow time)
Place: Russia, St. Petersburg, KSC Arena
Broadcast: Start Triumph, League website
Zenit: After loss to CSKA, Zenit had started another winning streak. The team beat MBA by 45 points and let opponents score only 48. Xavier Pascual team continues to prove the best defensive team status – 15 steals agaist MBA (season-high), and allowed opponents to score 65 or less points in 7 of 9 last games. Zenit will end the 2023 with the home games versus Astana and Lokomotiv Kuban. Now the St. Petersburg team has 12 wins and at the 3rd place in the standings.
Astana: The Kazakh team had played last 5 games out of 6 at home. Oleg Kislev team got 2 wins against Pari NN and Samara. Carvell Anderson set the new career-high in three-pointers made (8), Markell Johnson had 14 assists, which also became the career-high in the game against Nizhny. In the next 3 weeks, Astana will have games versus Zenit, Avtodor and Lokomotiv Kuban on the road.
Lokomotiv Kuban (Krasnodar) vs Uralmash (Yekaterinburg)
Time: 20:00 (Moscow time)
Place: Russia, Krasnodar, Basket Hall
Broadcast: TV Start, League website
Lokomoitv Kuban: The Krasnodar team started the season with 1 win in 5 games, after that 10 wins and 2 losses. Last season finalists got into the 4th place defeating Zenit, CSKA and UNICS. Loko beat Enisey in the last game even with not ideal shooting percentage. Rebounds helped the team as Lokomotiv set new team’s season-high in offensive rebounds (19). The home games winning streak is 7 games now, and Aleksandar Sekulic team in motivated to please their fans again.
Uralmash: The Yekaterinburg team fought with the reigning champion after changing head coach. Octavius Ellis had the best game of the season: 31 points, 10 rebounds and 41 eff. points, but it wasn’t enough. The Kazan team successfully guard other team players (only Kirill Pisklov made 1 of 1 form the game). On December 19, Uralmash announced Rostislav Vergun as a new head coach. He doesn’t have time for adaptation and tonight’s game will be a real test for his new players. Uralmash is still in the Top 6 (8-9) and can please fans even after game in Krasnodar as the team will host PARMA on December 25.
