Quarterfinals of the Playoffs 2023 are on the move! CSKA, UNICS and Loko each won 2 of their games and are very close to reaching the Semifinals. Zenit and MBA are tied 1-1.
Here are the main stories of the Quarterfinals:
Loko fans spent 56 hours to get to Nizhny
Lokomotiv Kuban finished in fifth place in the regular season and, without home advantage, was forced to begin the Playoffs with 2 road games in Nizhny Novgorod.
The Krasnodar team fans decided to support their team in the first games of the Series, which began Friday, and took the bus. Normally, the trip from Krasnodar to Nizhny Novgorod takes about a day, but this time the fans spent much longer. The snowstorms that hit the region interfered. The fans were stuck in traffic jams for 17 hours, unable to come back, which kept them from getting to their first Quarterfinals game.
Upon learning of this situation, Loko players on Friday morning recorded a video appeal for the fans, promising to do everything possible to make them happy. They didn’t let them down: the Krasnodar team was in the lead almost the entire game and won – 93:81.
But this win was tough. Okaro White and Dmitriy Uzinskii each left a tooth in Nizhny Novgodor.
The fans had already made it to the Game 2 – and their support helped Loko to win 1 more game (77:72). After the game, Aleksander Sekulic’s team met with the fans, who had been on the road for 56 hours.
Loko leads the Series 2-0, and the Krasnodar team need only 1 win to advance to the Semifinals. That wouldn’t seem out of the question, as the Series goes to Krasnodar. Pari NN had some problems with their rotation: 3 key players – Dragan Apic, Dmitriy Khvostov and Ivan Strebkov are out due to injuries.
Karasev won each of 2 games, Zenit and MBA are tied for first in the Series
The most interesting Quarterfinals between 3rd place and 6th place teams of the regular season was the first day of the Playoffs. Zenit started as reigning champions, while MBA is the newcomer.
In the end, however, the St. Petersburg team made a sensation: MBA won its first-ever Playoffs game (65:61). First, the Moscow team made a 14-point comeback. Second, MBA became the first team to make an 18-0 run in the fourth quarter in the Playoffs. Third, for the first time in the history of the League, the newcomer defeated the League champion in a Playoff game.
2 days later, Zenit tied – 87:60.
This series is also notable for a family rivalry. Vasily Karasev is MBA head coach and Sergey Karasev is Zenit forward. For the first time in League history, father and son met in the Playoffs game. One of the Karasev family would advance to the Semifinals for sure.
Vasily Karasev, by the way, knows how to win Playoff games in St. Petersburg. He coached Zenit from 2014 to 2018 and led the team to the Semifinals 4 times. And along with the Russian specialist, 3 MBA basketball players – Evgeny Voronov, Anton Pushkov and Evgeny Valiev – also played for Zenit. All of them played an important role for the St. Petersburg team and now they’re certainly eager to prove their worth in the Series against their former club.
2 wins for UNICS, Zhbanov defense and Kazan rugby
UNICS was the clear favorite in the Series against PARMA-PARI, both based on season stats and overall rialvry history. They proved it with 2 straight home wins – 101:76 and 94:59.
If, in the second game, the Volga had a 19-point lead by halftime and maintained the comfortable lead, in the Game 1 the teams fought hard. Reese-Robertson-Pokhodiaev trio broke down the defense, allowing PARMA-PARI to trail UNICS by only 6 points in the first half – 44:50. The guests lost only in the fourth quarter, unable to find the strength to challenge a deep rotation.
After the game, PARMA-PARI head coach Evgeny Pashutin compared the Kazan team’s defense with their rugby performance: “We expected UNICS to go to the foul line. They achieved what they wanted. We had to be ready for that kind of rugby in Kazan; it’s a PlayoffS game, after all”.
The Russian coach himself failed to produce such performance as UNICS scored more than 100 points for the first time since mid-February.
Winning 2 games in 3 days, UNICS came very close to reaching the Semifinals. Game 3 of the series will be played on Thursday in Perm.
CSKA defeats Avtodor twice, Astapkovic and Cacok provide the team with donuts
The regular season winner looks invincible in the first round of the Playoffs – the Army team confidently won both games.
Emil Rajkovic’s team scored 100 points twice – 111 in Game 1, 103 in Game 2. As you know, in CSKA, the player who scores the 100th point in a game has to buy the whole team donuts. Thus, already in Week 1 of the Playoffs, the Army team received them from Anton Astapkovic and DeVontae Cacok.
Only once in the history a team won the Playoff series by 100 points or more in each game: CSKA beat Astana in the Quarterfinals (3-0) in the 2014/15 season. Can the Moscow team repeat its achievement of 8 years ago?
