On Saturday, 3 regular season games will be played in Nur-Sultan, Saratov and Nizhny Novgorod.
Saturday, October 16
Astana (Kazakhstan) — Zielona Gora (Poland)
Time: 14:00 (16:00 Moscow time)
Location: Kazakhstan, Nur-Sultan, Saryarka Bike Track
Broadcast: TV Start
Rivals history: 6 games, Astana — 5 wins, Zielona Gora – 1 win
Astana: Astana players failed to get a sensational win over Zenit, losing to Nizhny Novgorod in the next game. However, Astana also showed perseverance and intransigence in this game — the Volga team managed to snatch the win only in a very tense ending. As in the first game of the season, Jaylen Barford performed superbly in the game against Nizhny, scoring 32 points. At the moment, the American newcomer leads the top resultative players of the season with 28.0 points per game.
Zielona Gora: the Poles have serious performance problems so far. True, in the first games of the season, they had such defensive game giants as UNICS and CSKA in their rivals, but even despite this, there are no bright attacking players in Zielona Gora roster who can take over the game at the decisive moment, as the same Barford does in Astana. The team’s top scorer is Nemanja Nenadic, scoring only 12.5 points per game, and Zielona Gora is in last place for the total points per game — 67.0 points.
What to follow: After games with two contenders in a row, the season can be said to begin anew for Zielona Gora. The team’s closest rivals do not exceed the Poles by a head in class (Astana, Nizhny Novgorod and Tsmoki), which means that Zielona Gora needs to win the next game in order to keep up with the playoff zone already at the season start.
Avtodor (Russia) — Tsmoki-Minsk (Belarus)
Location: Russia, Saratov, LDS Kristall
Broadcast: League website
Rivals history: 14 gamess, Avtodor — 11 wins, Tsmoki-Minsk – 3 wins
Avtodor: In the first two games, Saratov looked more like a typical Avtodor than a typical Emil Rajkovic team — they played well in offence, but struggle in defense. And if this was enough to defeat Kalev, then the Saratov team failed to overshoot Loko: 108 missed points is the worst result of the season so far. The team head coach after the game reasonably noted that Avtodor needed to work on pick-and-rolls defence — Loko simply tore the Saratov team paint, having got 12 of 12 shots in the first quarter. But in the FIBA Europe Cup opening game, Avtodor played much more accurately in defense, which led to a major win over Zaragoza — 100:80.
Tsmoki-Minsk: Dragons will be the next Atodor’s defense examiner. Although Rostislav Vergun’s squad formally got almost the last placein the League in points scored (68.7), this stat is not very indicative, since it was strongly influenced by the offencive failure in the game against CSKA (44 points). In a duel with the same Loko, the Minsk team looked much more thorough, scoring 87 points. And in the game versus PARMA, the result of the game was decided at the last minute.
What to follow: One of the main “X-factors” of the game may be the battle for the rebound. The fight aove the rival’s rim is still the Achilles heel of the Minsk team, which Rostislav Vergun drew attention to after the game against PARMA. But the Saratov team is fine with this: they got 3 place in the League for offencive rebounds (13 rebounds per game). The situation is complicated by Tsmoki centers injuries — neither Robert Upshaw nor Vadzim Stubeda took part in the game against PARMA, which affected the result.
Nizhny Novgorod (Russia) — Kalev (Estonia)
Location: Russia, Nizhny Novgorod, KRK Nagorny
Broadcast: Match! Igra, Mir Basketbola
Rivals history: 17 games, Nizhny Novgorod — 12 wins, Kalev – 5 wins
Nizhny Novgorod: The first win of the season was given to Nizhny at a high price – Anton Astapkovich, who started the game against Astana superbly (11 points in 17 minutes), will miss at least a month due to a broken arm. Added to this is the disappointing news about Evgeniy Baburin heath: the best defensive player and the team captain will have a surgery and will be out until the New Year. So Zoran Lukic will have to find internal reserves to strengthen the team. Such a reserve can be Rolands Freimanis game: in the game versus Astana, the most experienced sniper did not hesitate to take the game on control and got 25 points.
Kalev: Tallinn still fails to open the wins account in the season. In the Champions League, they are doing better — on Tuesday, Kalev managed to win the first win there beating Turkish Tofash. So far, the main problem of Kalev is instability: in a game against Enisey, the Tallinn team could well have counted on success, if not for a very unsuccessful game in the third 10-minute — even a bright comeback from -15 did not help. Estonian basketball legend Kristjan Kangur, a 38—year-old veteran who returned to the team after a year, will try to help Kalev.
Who to follow: Rolands Freimanis, who can take over the duties of Nizhny Novgorod main sniper, will play on Saturday against his former team — he played for Kalev in the 2015/16 season. Last season, his stats in games against Kalev were 20 points and 10.5 rebounds per game.
