On Sunday and Monday 5 regular season games take place
March 7, Sunday
CSKA (Russia) vs Tsmoki-Minsk (Belarus)
Time: 14:00 (14:00 МSК)
Place: Russia, Moscow, USH CSKA
Broadcast: Match! Strana, TV Start
Odds by Fonbet: CSKA — 1,90, Tsmoki-Minsk — 1,90
CSKA: Throughout 3-week break in the United League CSKA weren’t wasting their time. In March CSKA spent two games in Euroleague, beat Maccabi and lost to Anadolu Efes. Eventually, Iffe Lundberg is starting to fit into CSKA system, he scored 12 points against Maccabi. One more good news is recovered Daniel Hackett.
Tsmoki-Minsk: Throughout long confrontation history (21 games) the Dragons haven’t beat CSKA yet. However, recently Kalev proved that any winning streaks can be beaten. No doubt, Minsk will try to repeat Kalev’s success, but it would be hard to make: CSKA probably will be extremely motivated trying to recover after the defeat against Efes that was the biggest for CSKA in history. Tsmoki are in tough situation, the loss against Avtodor made their play-off seed chances miserable.
Nizhny Novgorod (Russia) vs Astana (Kazakhstan)
Time: 16:00 (16:00 МSК)
Place: Russia, Nizhny Novgorod, CEC Nagorny
Broadcast: Match! Strana, TV Start
Odds by Fonbet: Nizhny Novgorod — 1,16, Astana — 5,25
Nizhny Novgorod: In late February Nizhny spent their worst season game losing to UNICS. Zoran Lukic’s team only managed to score 56 points, and in the first quarter they hit only one field goal. Need in powering up the team has come and Nizhny front office signing famous, Russia National team captain Andrei Vorontsevich. After 14 seasons for CSKA veteran started this season as free agent but still was playing for the National team. By the way, Zoran Lukic maya have national team starting line-up, Strebkov, Vorontsevich, Astapkovich, Baburin, Komolov.
Astana: Each round Kazakhstan’s situation becomes worse and worse. Astana’s losing streak is 5 games now, 3 of them Emil Rajkovikj’s squad lost to straight rivals – Enisey and Kalev. After a game against Kalev Kazakhstan fell of the top-10. Thing that bother team’s coaching staff is that it’s 6th time in 16 games in a season when Astana can’t score more than 70 points. By the way, one of this games was Astana vs Nizhny this season, back then Volga took confident victory letting the opponents score only 69 points, Evgenii Baburin became the best player of the game that set his career-high in efficiency – 22 EFF points.
Kalev (Estonia) vs Avtodor (Russia)
Time: 17:00 (18:00 МSК)
Place: Estonia, Kalev, Kalevi Spordihall
Broadcast: League’s web-site
Odds by Fonbet: Kalev — 2,00, Avtodor — 1,80
Kalev: After CSKA sensation Kalev couldn’t maintain the rythm and lost to PARMA twice. But against Astana Tallinn proved that they still are fighting: Kalev left no chance to rivals, and forward Janai Joesaar had his best game in the entire career scoring 17 points and setting rebounding record – 18 points. It is quite an achievement considering Joesaar height is 198cm. However, against Avtodor it hardly can be repeated as Nizhny and League’s second best rebounding team (36,8).
Avtodor: Unsuccessful result of Volga Derby (Nizhny vs UNICS) made Saratov leave the top-8 for a while. Anyway, in the next game Avtodor recovered taking their season-high scoring victory over Tsmoki-Minsk (113) and getting back to the 7th spot. This week it was announced that one of Saratov’s leaders Zeljko Sakic stays in the team for one more year (12,7 points and 7,4 rebounds). Although Volga look like front-runners against Kalev it won’t be a piece of cake for them. Best team’s scorers match-up looks thrilling, Nate Mason from Saratov (15,6 points) against Marcus Keene from Tallinn (20,2 points per game, League’s third best scorer). In their January meeting Keene couldn’t play that influenced the result, Tallinn managed to score only 61 points.
March 8, Monday
Zenit (Russia) vs Khimki (Russia)
Time: 13:00 (13:00 МSК)
Place: Russia, Saint-Petersburg, Sibur Arena
Broadcast: Match TV, TV Start
Odds by Fonbet: Zenit — 1,23, Khimki — 4,15
Zenit: Last week Zenit and Khimki both met one of European basketball contenders, Real Madrid. If Khimki took one of the brightest victories this season then Zenit failed, losing to Real 4 points. Despite this, Zenit are still confidently staying in Euroleague’s top-8. They are gradually solving their roster problems: Dmitry Khvostov recovered after injury, he got it in December. Russian National team’s player participated in the game against Alba. The victory over Khimki would be very crucial for Zenit in terms of standings, undefeated in 2021 UNICS are breathing down their neck, they are now only one victory away.
Khimki: Moscow continue to struggle getting victories after defeats after victories. On last February day Khimki lost to season’s discovery Zielona Gora and complicated their standings situation even more. Khimki take 8th spot outpacing PARMA. Andrei Maltcev’s squad have tough schedule: in March alone they play against Zenit, CSKA and Zielona Gora. In Euroleague Khimki continue to struggle as well, after a great victory over Real they were defeated heavily by Alba. By the way, September game this season between Zenit and Khimki was the first after pandemic lockdown break. Zenit’s win set the tone for Petersburg 7-game winning streak at the start of the season.
Zielona Gora (Poland) vs PARMA (Russia)
Time: 18:00 (20:00 МSК)
Place: Poland, Zielona Gora, CRS Hala Zielona Góra
Broadcast: TV STart, Basketball World
Odds by Fonbet: Zielona Gora — 1,34, PARMA — 3,25
Zielona Gora: As it was noted, the Polish team is considered the discovery of the season 2020/21. After a win over Khimki Zan Tabak’s team took 5th spot catching Lokomotiv-Kuban and CSKA in wins (11). At the moment it is Zielona Gora’s best record in the United League (last – 8 wins) and there are 5 games left. Four of them the Poles will hold at home, and all of the opponents except for Khimki are off the play-off zone. Thus, the Poles have good chances to improve it and take higher seed in play-offs.
PARMA: Although Perm are off the top-8, two February wins over Kalev give them a chance to fight for a play-off spot with Khimki. At the moment they have same records (7-8), and in certain case Ural can outpace Khimki. However, the main hero of the game was Iffe Lundberg (25 points) who is now playing for CSKA. As the game against Khimki showed Zan Tabak knows how to replace their leader. If PARMA don’t take revenge on the Poles their chances for play-off become miserable, as they have tough schedule including 4 consecutive away games, some of the against top-8 team.
