On Saturday, Sunday and Monday Krasnodar, Nizhny Novgorod, St. Petersburg and Tallinn will host 4 regular season games.
Saturday, October 2
Lokomotiv-Kuban (Russia) — Tsmoki-Minsk (Belarus)
Time: 16:00 (Moscow time)
Location: Basket Hall, Krasnodar, Russia
Broadcast: TV Start, the League website
Games history: 18 games, Lokomotiv-Kuban — 17 wins, Tsmoki-Minsk – 1 win
Lokomotiv-Kuban: Loko traditionally plays powerfully against the Minsk team. In the entire history of their games, the Dragons managed to win only once — in March 2018, in overtime of a very intense game. As a rule, the Krasnodar team takes over in face-to-face games without any problems — the average difference between scored and missed is almost 15 points in Loko favour. The positive news from the Kuban camp is that the team’s newcomer Greg Whittington has arrived at the team’s location and has already held the first training session as part of his new club.
Tsmoki-Minsk: Despite the not very rosy history of the games between Tsmoki and Lokomotiv, the Minsk team should not give up. Loko squad are not only practically new this season, but also a very young team: more than half of the players in the squad are young Russians. And like any building team, Evgeniy Pashutin’s squad is still very unstable, which was shown in the SuperCup, and especially the opening season game, in which Loko missed a 21-point lead. Tsmoki also has a chance to take advantage of this unstability, although the Minsk team are certainly inferior to their rivals in terms of depth of roster.
Who to follow: young forward Andrey Martyuk, whom Evgeniy Pashutin gradually brought to the main roster last season, justified the coach’s trust in the game against UNICS, scoring 16 points (the second most scoring player of the team before Stanton Kidd). The duel with Tsmoki is a great opportunity for Martyuk to prove that he is seriously aiming for the title of the best young player of the League.
Sunday, October 3
Nizhny Novgorod (Russia) — CSKA Moscow (Russia)
Time: 14:00 (Moscow time)
Location: KRK Nagorny, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Broadcast: Match TV, the League website
Games history: 28 games, CSKA — 25 wins, Nizhny Novgorod – 3 wins
Nizhny Novgorod: In the last playoffs, CSKA suffered only two loses in ten games, and Nizhny Novgorod inflicted one of them on the Moscow team in the first round. On the Volga, an ambitious experiment continues to build a base team for the Russian national team: after the departure of the newly signed newcomer Tyler Larson, Nizhny Novgorod, in search of a new point guard, chose not another foreigner, but 19-year-old Anton Kardanakhishvili. This player, whom Nizhny Novgorod got from CSKA, was remembered by Russian fans for his debut for the Russian national team this summer. In general, Nizhny backcourt is perhaps the most competitive: in addition to Kardanakhishvili, this summer the team was joined by such famous players as Dmitriy Khvostov and Mikhail Kulagin.
CSKA: This week the Army team made their debut in the Euroleague, and this debut can be called doubly unsuccessful. Firstly, Dimitris Itoudis players lost to the Olimpia Milano. And secondly, which is much more important than an ordinary loss at the start of the season, they lost Nikola Milutinov. The main CSKA bigman was injured already in the first minutes of the game and will not take part in the game versus Nizhny. On the other hand, even without the Serb, CSKA has a tight safety belt. In Milutinov’s absence, Vladimir Ivlev, a former Novgorod player who started his professional career at Nizhny , can get a chance to prove himself against his ex-team.
Who to follow: there are also a lot of players in Nizhny Novgorod squad who at one time went out in CSKA jerseys. These are Alexandr Gankevich, Mikhail Kulagin, and Ivan Strebkov. But perhaps the brightest player from the former Army team is Anton Astapkovich, who became the key player of that victorious game in May. This time Nizhny Novgorod sniper will try to bring sensational win to his team again.
October 4, Monday
Zenit (Russia) — Astana (Kazakhstan)
Time: 19:00 (Moscow time)
Location: Sibur Arena, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Broadcast: Match TV, the League website
History of meetings: 13 games, Zenit — 9 wins, Astana – 4 wins
Zenit: The game against Astana is unlikely to be an easy one for Zenit— just two days before the game with the Kazakhstan team, Zenit will start in the Euroleague with a trip to Kazan. Zenit had already made its debut in the United League, defeating Kalev, but after this game it was time to say that the St. Petersburg team was being pursued by evil fate: as in the SuperCup final, lost a point guard in the first minutes. However, according to Xavi Pascual, Conner Frankamp’s injury is not as serious as Shabazz Napier’s, but he is unlikely to be able to play in the game against Astana. But Jordan Mickey showed himself phenomenally: Zenit rookie scored 27 points, with 5 from 6 from the 3-pt line, and made 10 rebounds, got the personal best for the season.
Astana: The era of Emil Rajkovic in Astana has come to an end — the Macedonian specialist, who was recognized as the United League best coach in 2019, went to Saratov to manage Avtodor. And Astana head coach post will be taken by Darko Russo. For the Serb, this game will be his debut in the United League. In general, in the offseason, Astana was far from the main newsmaker, but it was noted with several interesting signings. First of all, this is the guards duo Anthony Hickey and Jaylen Barford, who has already proved himself in pre-season games.
Who to follow: Dmitry Kulagin — one of the most resonant signings in the United League-2021 — has already started training with Zenit and could have already played with Kalev, but Xavi Pascual still did not release the Russian guard on the floor. However, due to the injuries of 2 guard already, the rotation in the backcourt of Zenit has seriously decreased. Therefore, there is a chance to finally see on the court one of the iconic Russian players who completely missed the 2020/21 season.
Kalev (Estonia) — Avtodor (Russia)
Time: 19:00 (Moscow time)
Location: Kalevi Spordihall, Tallinn, Estonia
Broadcast: TV Start, the League website
Games history: 14 games, Avtodor — 11 wins, Kalev – 3 wins
Kalev: Despite the bright game of rookie JeQuan Lewis (15 points and 7 rebounds), the first game in the current regular season for Tallinn turned out to be a lump — they lost to Zenit, scoring only 60 points. Of the rest of the Kalev players, no one else was able to cross the line of 10 points scored. Now the Estonian team offence will be tested by another serious rival – Avtodor. Usually, the duels of these rivals turn out to be very effective: on average, 170 points scored per game. However, do not forget that this offseason Avtodor was headed by Emil Rajkovic, who distinguished himself in Astana with a very great attention to the defense game.
Avtodor: Rajkovic faces a difficult stretch. In October, his new team will play with three Russian basketball grandees – Loko, Zenit and UNICS. It will be difficult to get one or two wins during this streak, but it is extremely important for Avtodor – after all, Rajkovic came to Saratov hoping to bring Avtodor to the playoffs for the first time in three seasons. The main Saratov team signings this offseason can be considered Philip Scrubb, who is familiar to Russian fans from playing Zenit, as well as the athletic bigman from Darushshafaka Grant Jerrett.
What to watch: over the past 7 seasons, Avtodor has been famous for its somewhat reckless style of play: whoever coached the Saratov team, they were always highly productive, but they also missed a lot (the best result in defense was 84.6 points missed on average per game in the 2015/16 season). Often it was the problems in defense that prevented Avtodor from claiming something more than getting into the playoffs. Emil Rajkovic is called upon to change this trend, and already the first game of the season should become a trial for a new defense because they have practically no time to swing.
