On Sunday, Saratov, Kazan, Minsk and Krasnodar will host 4 regular season games.
Sunday, November 7
Avtodor (Russia) — Astana (Kazakhstan)
Location: Russia, Saratov, LDS Cristal
Broadcast: TV Start, League website
Rivalry history: 13 games, Avtodor — 7 wins, Astana – 6 wins
Avtodor: The Saratov team continues to go through the season almost non-stop. A month ago, the loss from Loko remains the only one for the Saratov team so far — they got 4 wins in 5 games in the United League, and in the FIBA Europe Cup they lead their group with four consecutive wins. Avtodor’s strength last test to date was an away game against Zaragoza — the Saratov team were able to reverse the unsuccessful course of the game and got a strong-willed win in overtime.
Astana: Avtodor’s neighbors in the standings occupy the fifth place, but so far this is only a convention — Astana have not played games in the United League since October 16, and one loss can seriously change their positions. The main intrigue of the game is whether Avtodor’s defense, which is still playing according to the Brazilian system (third place from the end in points scored by the opponents), will be able to restrain Jaylen Barford. The American can be considered the main surprise at the start of the season – scoring 26.7 points per game, he leads the League’s top scorers list.
What to follow: Emil Rajkovikj will bring a new team to the game against Astana for the first time, which he led from 2018 to 2021. In 2019, Astana under his coaching got a record sixth place in the League in their history, and the Macedonian specialist was recognized as the best coach of the year that season.
UNICS (Russia) — CSKA (Russia)
Location: Russia, Kazan, Basket Hall
Broadcast: Match TV, League website
Rivalry history: 27 games, CSKA — 22 wins, UNICS – 5 wins
UNICS: Both Russian teams played in the Euroleague this week and both got losses. The Kazan team lost to ASVEL with a 3 poitns difference. Despite the unsuccessful result, there were positive moments for UNICS in this game. Mario Hezonja is gaining momentum — as in the recent game against PARMA, the Croat scored 27 points. And although SuperMario’s threes is still unstable (2 out of 7 form the arc in the game with ASVEL), nevertheless, the forward became the leader of the game in performance, having made 10 out of 12 two-point shots.
CSKA: The Army team continues to storm. The failure in the game against Fenerbahce was their fourth in a row. Since Dimitris Itoudis took over CSKA, this is only the second such streak in 7 years. In the absence of key players and with Will Clyburn’s not the most impressive game, the main offencive work so far falls on Iffe Lundberg, recently recognized as the MVP of September-October in the United League. However, in the game with the Turks, Clyburn and Lundberg switched roles — if the American played perhaps his best game since the start of the season (26 points and 9 rebounds), then the Dane, whom Itoudis tried as the joker, scored only 4 points.
What to follow: one of the main CSKA problems at the start of the season is injuries of leading players. However, Tornike Shengelia has already taken part in two games, and Nikola Milutinov is likely to return to the lineup for Sunday’s game. The Serbian center could have played in the game with Fenerbahce, but the coaching staff decided to give him a little more time to recover.
Game of the week. UNICS vs. CSKA
Tsmoki-Minsk (Belarus) — Kalev (Estonia)
Location: Belarus, Minsk, Falcon Club
Broadcast: TV Start, League website
Rivalry history: 13 games, Kalev – 7 wins, Tsmoki-Minsk – 6 wins
Tsmoki-Minsk: The Minsk team is the only club in the United League that has not got a single win since the beginning of the season. The game with Zielona Gora turned into a fiasco — the Poles not only opened the account of the games won, but also did it very effectively, winning with a 32 points difference. And although Tsmoki and Kalev rivalry history are almost equal, this time the Minsk team, even despite the home court advantage, will be underdogs. Moreover, the last time the Dragons defeated their counterparts was in 2019.
Kalev: Last year, the Tallinn team became the authors of one of the main sensations of the season — in a super-offencive game they beat CSKA, which became United League champs a few months later. Few people expected that Tallinn players would be able to repeat this success in less than a year, but they did — however, in a completely different style. Kalev completely shut down CSKA’s force offence, allowing them to score only 56 points, which was their worst result in the League history for the Army team. It should be noted that this win was the second in a row for Kalev — Nizhny Novgorod was beaten before that. Now the Tallinn team has a great chance to bring this streak to three games and take a shigh position in the playoff zone.
Who to follow: Tsmoki center Robert Upshaw, who did not start the season too well, in the last two games becomes the team’s most resultative player. An interesting fact is that Upshaw made his debut in the United League back in 2016 as Kalev player. However, he played only three games in the Tallinn club and did not do anything special.
Lokomotiv-Kuban (Russia) – Enisey (Russia)
Location: Russia, Krasnodar, Basket Hall
Broadcast: Match! Igra, Mir Basketbola, League website
Rivalry history: 20 gamess, Lokomotiv-Kuban — 16 wins, Enisey – 4 wins
Lokomotiv-Kuban: The Kuban team are gradually finding their game. If they still only 7th in the United League, then they won all three games in the EuroCup and lead their group together with Partizan. On Wednesday, the railwaymen confidently beat Metropolitan with a 14 points difference. This time Evgeny Pashutin gave rest to Alan Williams, who made his debut earlier after a year’s absence, but Jonathan Motley gave out really good performance — 30 points and 11 rebounds.
Enisey: And Enisey after their debut successful game with Kalev, has already suffered two losses in a row. However, the Siberians had very powerful rivals – UNICS, which was able to snatch win only in overtime, and top-performed Zenit. So far, the Krasnoyarsk team weakest link looks like their offence — Enisey ranks third from the end in points scored on average per game. On the other hand, Loko is still the last in the League in defense organization, and by a large margin: Loko let opponents score 96.0 per game, and Tsmoki — 90.6 points. So Enisey offence has a good opportunity to prove itself.
Who to follow: Andrey Martyuk was included in the expanded list of the Russian national team for the November games this week. In the game with Metropolitan in the EuroCup, the young forward proved that Zoran Lukic did not make such a choice by chance — Martyuk came out in the starting five, played almost 30 minutes, scored 15 points and 6 rebounds, realizing 6 of 7 shots from the field.
