On Saturday and Sunday there will be 6 regular season games.
Saturday, January 25
Lokomotiv-Kuban (Russia) vs Enisey (Russia)
Time: 16:00 (16:00 МSК)
Place: Russia, Krasnodar, Basket Hall
Broadcast: League’s web-site
Odds by Fonbet: Lokomotiv-Kuban — 1,25, Enisey — 4,00
Lokomotiv-Kuban: By beating Tsmoki Loko prolonged their winning streak to 5 games and continued chasing CSKA. In this round Lokomotiv may get even with CSKA – if only they win and CSKA lose to Nizhny. Game against Nizhny is crucial for Loko because of another reason: in December Siberians beat Kuban for the first time in 8 years in Krasnodar. This and further loss form Avtodor were the reason of coaching staff changes – the team was headed by Evgeny Pashutin, under his coaching Lokomotiv haven’t lost yet in VTB league.
Enisey: After defeating Loko in December they outpaced them in standings and took third place. However, since then the situation has changed a lot – Kuban hold 5-game winning streak while Enisey have 4 losses and 1 win for the same period of time. Nevertheless, Krasnoyarsk shouldn’t be underrated – they fight against favourites especially hard giving away all their powers, and game against Khimki showed it. Furthermore, team’s leader Davion Berry was absent. Later, in FIBA Europe cup loss to Bahcesehir Berry managed to participate in the game but didn’t show his best, thus much will depend on his shape in Loko’s game.
Sunday, January 26
Astana (Kazakhstan) vs Zielona Gora (Poland)
Time: 15:00 (12:00 МSК)
Place: Kazakhstan, Nur-Sultan, Saryarka Velodrome
Broadcast: League’s web-site
Odds by Fonbet: Astana — 1,35, Zielona Gora — 3,20
Astana: Emial Raikovikj’s team continue to fight for a play-off spot. To increase their chances Astana need to beat Zielona Gora and Tsmoki by any means, because then Kazakhstan have games against Khimki and CSKA. Even considering that games will take place at Nur-Sultan where Astana traditionally show good results (4 wins in 5 games this season) the team need to create security stock in games vs smaller teams. On Sunday Jeffrey Crockett may debut – small forward who had played from Denmark to New Zeland.
Zielona Gora: During game vs UNICS Zeilona Gora suffered a loss – team’s leading big Drew Gordon, who had started the game very confidently, had to leave the court because of injury. At his absence Kazan started feel more free in the paint and broke the game. Details of the injury weren’t announced yet, but if he wouldn’t participate in this game that will significantly increase Astana’s chances who still have classic dominating big Dusan Ristic (18,3 points + 11,6 rebounds on average per game). As for Crockett from Astana the upcoming game may be a debut for one more rookie – guard George King from Trento.
Tsmoki-Minsk (Belarus) vs Khimki (Russia)
Time: 15:00 (15:00 МSК)
Place: Belarus, Minsk, Falcon club
Broadcast: League’s web-site
Odds by Fonbet: Tsmoki-Minsk — 5,50, Khimki — 1,15
Tsmoki-Minsk: Despite the confident basketball in past few games (a big loss was against Zenit), the Dragons still hold last place in the league. Their opponent will be the team that lost only once this season. Rostislav Vergun’s team will have to show their best basketball to fight against such a terrifying rivals – they have to show the same that they showed a month ago vs CSKA. Recalling that the defending champion hardly beat Tsmoki with a 3-point differential allowing more than 90 points for the second time this season.
Khimki: Throughout the match-up history Khimki have never lost to Minsk – 13 consecutive wins. But this doesn’t mean that the game won’t be thrilling. Game against Tsmoki will be fourth in 10 days for Rimas Kurtinaitis’ squad. Moreover, Khimki returned after a tough away game is Spain where they lost to Basconia in clutch. Fatigue and lack of time for preparation may influence another game on the road.
Nizhny Novgorod (Russia) vs CSKA (Russia)
Time: 15:00 (15:00 МSК)
Place: Russia, Nizhny Novgorod, CEC Nagorny
Broadcast: Match! Strana
Odds by Fonbet: Nizhny Novgorod — 5,10, CSKA — 1,17
Nizhny Novgorod: 4 of 5 last Nizhny’s games ended in clutch – Novgorod either won or lost with the difference of 2-5 points. Game vs PARMA was an exception which ended up with the biggest lost for Nizhny this season – “-35”. Nizhny couldn’t win in the next game neither – in Champions league they lost to Nymburk, who they played against a several times in United league. In the game against CSKA Zoran Lukic’s team will try to recover for these games but it obviously will be hard to do. CSKA is in good rythm, and match-up history is on the Red-blues side – 20 losses in 22 games. Last time Nizhny beat Moscow was more than 4 years ago, under Ainars Bagatskis coaching.
CSKA: After an insulting mistake in a game against Khimki they did their homework. Starting from there Moscow are in a 5-game winning streak: they destroyed Zenit in United league, and in Euroleague took 4 consecutive victories. The last game in Euroleague was a success too as they beat Valencia. CSKA rookie Howard Sant-Roos is fitting in the roster quite well and gained 11 points against Spaniards. This is a lucky circumstance concerning Andrei Vorontsevich’s injury.
Avtodor (Russia) vs PARMA (Russia)
Time: 16:00 (17:00 МSК)
Place: Russia, Saratov, Crystal SP
Broadcast: League’s web-site
Odds by Fonbet: Avtodor— 1,55, PARMA — 2,45
Avtodor: After a short winning-streak Saratov stepped in unlucky streak – 4 losses in a row threw them to second worst place in standings. Concerning the high competition in table Avtodor still have time to recover – only 2 wins separate them with 5th Zenit. Before the game against Kalev Markel Starks noted that the return of many leaders should help them – during last 2 weeks Predrag Krunic’s squad was suffering a lot from injuries and diseases. However, In Tallinn Saratov’s problems with backcourt appeared: despite the confident game by bigs Isaiah Hicks and Mouhammadou Jaiteh (30 points and 20 rebounds combined) Avtodor couldn’t hold Tallinn’s guards Aigars Skele and Kyle Vinales that caused the defeat.
PARMA: In January Ural look like a completely different team in comparison with past year. Perm recovered for defeat from last place Tsmoki – firstly, beating Astana in overtime and then setting new franchise records against Nizhny. In both games Perm managed to score more than 100 points proving their status of one of the best offences in the league – To date PARMA average 87,4 points per game and is top-4 team on this indicator. The key factor of victory over Nizhny was a perfect game by Perm long-range shooters – they hit 13 of 27 threes, including Grygoriev’s 4 of 4.
Zenit (Russia) vs UNICS (Russia)
Time: 18:30 (18:30 МSК)
Place: Russia, St. Petersburg, Sibur Arena
Broadcast: Match TV
Odds by Fonbet: Zenit — 1,60, UNICS — 2,35
Zenit: In the game of the week two standings neighbours will meet – Zenit is one spot below UNICS, but 2 wins behind. That’s why Sunday game is crucial: if Zenit win they will not only cut the gap but won’t let their main rivals outrun. In a past week Petersburg played two different games: first, they were destroyed by CSKA, and first three quarters of game were equal and only in the fourth CSKA’s bench length let them beat powerless opponents. But in Euroleague Zenit beat Olympiacos. The key players were Gustavo Ayon and Zenit’s captain Evgeny Voronov. However, Joan Plaza’s coaching staff still have some issues to solve: Zenit’s backcourt couldn’t hold Eurobasket’s veteran Vassilis Spanoulis, who scored 31 points.
UNICS: Kazan are in good mood before the game against Zenit. On Thursday they destroyed Galatasaray in Eurocup Top-16 and took the first place in their group. Traditionally, Errick McCollum became the top scorer (by the way, he was playing vs his old team and celebrated his birthday with this win). McCollum – Jamar Smith duo may be a big trouble for Zenit’s defence, weakened by Dmitry Khvostov’s injury. Moreover, it should be considered that Jordan Theodore gradually gets better in UNICS system, helping his teammates – in game against Turks he gave 7 assists in 20 minutes on the court.
