On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 5 regular season games to be held.
April 20, Tuesday
UNICS (Russia) vs PARMA (Russia)
Time: 13:00 (13:00 МSК)
Venue: Russia, Kazan, Basket Hall
Broadcast: Match! Strana
Odds by Fonbet: UNICS — 1,27, PARMA — 3,75
UNICS: Beating Virtus in EuroCup semi-finals, UNICS extended winning streak against Astana. It’s interesting that UNICS scored 107 points against the Italians, but had a much more low-scoring game against Astana. John Brown, who became EuroCup weekly MVP, scored only 7 points (but also 9 rebounds and was good at defense). Unlike PARMA, Kazan still have motivation: theoretically, UNICS can be surpassed by Loko.
PARMA: Ural played unsuccessfully against Avtodor losing the fourth quarter. But the main goal is still achieved: although Perm didn’t please the fans in Molot, they clinched play-offs for the first time in history, also they have franchise-high wins’ number this season. It won’t be easy to beat motivated UNICS in Kazan, but recall, Perm are experienced team: in 2019 PARMA beat Dimitrios Priftis team in Basket-Hall giving the regular season title to CSKA. However, the main hero of that team Tre McLean left Perm long ago.
April 21, Wednesday
Tsmoki-Minsk (Belarus) vs Khimki (Russia)
Time: 19:00 (19:00 МСК)
Venue: Беларусь, Минск, Минск Арена
Broadcast: Матч! Страна, ТВ Старт
Odds by Fonbet: Tsmoki-Minsk — 4,15, Khimki — 1,23
Tsmoki-Minsk: Despite the fact that Tsmoki demonstrated the will to win in the game against Enisey (they won the second half by 14), Minsk still did not manage to break their streak of 12 defeats in a row. The game against Khimki will be the last home game for the Dragons this season. However, Rostislav Vergun’s team may not have enough strength to overcome Khimki, that weakened, but still playing in the front-runners status. If Tsmoki still manage to do this, then the victory will be the first in the 16-game history of head-to-head meetings. Throughout the season, Minsk suffered from poor offense: the last time they managed to cross the line of 80 points scored was in mid-December.
Khimki: However, last week Khimki lost to the opponents with the same streak of head-to-head losses: Kalev beat Khimki for the second time in 10 years. This defeat actually put an end to Khimki’s hopes to bypass Zielona Gora and move up to sixth place. On the other hand, Timofey Mozgov, who was resting, did not take part in the game against Kalev, who is still only adapting to full-fledged playing schedule. And Errick McCollum, who became the main offensive option of the team after the injury of Alexey Shved, had a frankly unsuccessful game (1/6 from the field). But Sergey Karasev, who scored 18 points, gave his best game this season. At the end of the season, Karasev generally got in good shape – for the third consecutive game he finished with a double-digit numbers in the points column.
Kalev (Estonia) vs Nizhny Novgorod (Russia)
Time: 19:00 (19:00 МSК)
Venue: Estonia, Kalev, Kalevi Spordihall
Broadcast: Mir Basketbola
Odds by Fonbet: Kalev — 2,80, Nizhny Novgorod — 1,44
Kalev: Despite the important victory in the game against Khimki, Kalev has not yet achieved the maximum goal at the end of this season – to settle in the top ten. Enisey also won in the last round and continued pursuing Tallinn. Undoubtedly, Kalev are front-runners, having 7 victories (Krasnoyarsk team has 6). However, preferable ones do not mean 100%: Kalev and Enisey will meet in the last round, and if Tallinn cannot win a rematch from Nizhny for the defeat in December, then the fate of the tenth line in the table will be decided in a face-to-face duel between these teams.
Nizhny Novgorod: In the last round one of the hottest series of the end of the season was broken – Zenit outclassed Nizhny, breaking the 6-game winning streak of Volga. Of course, in the last games of the season, the main concern of Zoran Lukic will be the restart of the Nizhny Novgorod’s offense. According to Volga head coach, his team’s offense has started to decline, and this is confirmed by the results of Nizhny in the last three games: although Nizhny Novgorod won twice in this period, they averaged only 67 points per game. Despite the traditionally tight defense of Nizhny, such a low performance certainly inspires concern in the coaching staff on the eve of the playoffs and the Final Eight of the Champions League, where Nizhny will play against Zaragoza.
April 22, Thursday
Enisey (Russia) vs UNICS (Russia)
Time: 19:30 (15:30 МSК)
Venue: Russia, Krasnoyarsk, Sever Arena
Broadcast: TV Start
Enisey: Although the Siberians look like an obvious underdogs in this game, they can still indirectly affect the distribution of places in the United League standings and the fate of UNICS in Europe. However, the chances of Enisey to snatch victory from UNICS largely depend on whether UNICS itself will be able to defeat PARMA before that and in what line-up they will fly to Krasnoyarsk. The last (and in many ways sensational) victory of Enisey over Kazan is dated December 2019: then, in a super-tense ending, Drazen Anzulovic’s team nevertheless took the lead thanks to the brilliant game-winner by Davion Barry, who now plays in Cyprus. And UNICS themselves allowed 95 points, which were rather unusual, 40 of them were from the free throw line.
UNICS: The end of the season for Kazan turned out to be really hot, and not only in terms of game, but also in terms of the huge distances that the team has to cover. Starting from April 17 to April 30, that is, in less than two weeks, the calendar brought Kazan 6 games, half of which were away (including against Monaco in the Eurocup final). Therefore, it is quite possible that Dimitrios Priftis will nevertheless bring a “lightweight” line-up to Krasnoyarsk, giving at least two or three key players a rest. However, this will hardly make it easier for the Krasnoyarsk team – UNICS resources will be quite enough to control the game, even if the roster is diluted with young players. For example, in the first game of the season, UNICS confidently beat Enisey due to the trademark defense, allowing the Siberians to score only 64 points.
Astana (Kazakhstan) vs Zielona Gora (Poland)
Time: 21:00 (18:00 МSК)
Venue: Kazakhstan, Nur-Sultan, Saryarka Velodrome
Broadcast: TV Start
Odds by Fonbet: Astana — 2,65, Zielona Gora — 1,48
Astana: The game, which was originally supposed to take place back in January, was postponed twice due to coronavirus infection. Astana and Zielona Gora will finally be able to meet at the end of the regular season. For Astana, the match will no longer have a tournament value: they will not be able to break into the top ten, so the main motivation for Kazakhstan will be the opportunity to win two home victories at the finish of the season – after Zielona Gora they will host Tsmoki-Minsk.
Zielona Gora: The team of Zan Tabak played their last game in the United League exactly one month before the game in Nur-Sultan – on March 22. In this segment, Zielona Gora lost two games in a row, with the opponents located below in the table – Kalev and Khimki. So the Poles will certainly try to beautifully close the best regular season in their history. Even despite such a significant break in playing practice, Zielona Gora can be considered the undisputed favorite: the team with the third most efficient offense (87.9 points) after the giants CSKA and Loko meet the team that has the second worst offense in the League (76.4 points). By the way, a major victory over Astana in the first round was the first for the Poles in the 5-game history of face-to-face meetings.
