On Sunday 3 regular season games will take place.
November 22, Sunday
UNICS (Russia) vs Khimki (Russia)
Time: 13:00 (13:00 MSK)
Place: Russia, Kazan, Basket Hall
Broadcast: Match TV
Odds by Fonbet: UNICS — 2,00, Khimki — 1,80
UNICS: Kazan is approaching game of the week with 2 consecutive losses. If the first one was against one of straight rivals Lokomotiv then the second was kind of sensation: Kazan didn’t manage to stop Iffe Lundberg and lost to Zileona Gora for the first time in franchise history. The bad streak continued in Serbia where Dimitrios Priftis’ squad lost to Partizan in Eurocup. Thus, the game against Khimki will be decisive and show if Kazan have managed to overcome the bad streak.
Khimki: The Moscow team aren’t stable as well. In latest games it seemed like Khimki found its rhythm: firstly, they beat CSKA in the main derby of Russian basketball, and then continued it with away victory over Zenit in Euroleague. However, then Rimas Kurtinaitis’ team lost badly to Anadolu Efes. In this game the most problematic part was Khimki’s offense, one of the best in European basketball: only 2 players scored 10+ points. For Khimki the game against UNICS is important from standings point of view, in case of victory they will finally even their record and settle in the play-off zone.
Game of the week: UNICS vs Khimki
Enisey (Russia) vs Lokomotiv-Kuban (Russia)
Time: 18:00 (14:00 MSK)
Place: Russia, Krasnoyarsk, Arena Sever
Broadcast: TV Start
Odds by Fonbet: Enisey — 5,25, Lokomotiv-Kuban — 1,16
Enisey: After the losing streak on the start of the season Enisey broke it outclassing PARMA at UDS Molot. Now they will have another challenge by a contender, this time – Lokomotiv. Enisey have beat Kuban in their history: the last time was less than a year ago, and the main hero was Dustin Hogue who scored 27 points and dominated the paint. However, in that game today’s Krasnodar main star Alan Williams wasn’t playing, and team’s leader Johnny O’Bryant had a bad day.
Lokomotiv-Kuban: One of the main intrigues of the game could be brothers Kulagin duel but Dmitriy left Loko, so other players would try to guard in-form Mikhail (21,3 points per game). After a regrettable loss against Avtodor Kuban recovered beating Lietkabelis in Eurocup and making top-16 of this competition. The main hero was not Alan Williams as it seemed, by the way he didn’t collect double-double, it was Mindaugas Kuzminskas who scored 20 points. 17 more points were brought by Jordan Crawford, his duel with Kulagin may become the jewel of the game.
PARMA (Russia) vs CSKA (Russia)
Time: 15:30 (17:30 MSK)
Place: Russia, Perm, UDS Molot
Broadcast: TV Start
Odds by Fonbet: PARMA — 10,00, CSKA — 1,05
PARMA: Ural have already met CSKA on the start of the season, it was less than 2 months ago. They brought a sensation taking the first victory over one of the best teams of the Old World. By the way, during the game PARMA were 22 points behind but managed to reduce the gap in 5 minutes. However, Ural slowed down then suffering 2 losses in a row. Interesting point is that PARMA’s offense didn’t work out, before that they were averaging over 90 points per game, in games vs Enisey and Nizhny Novgorod Perm scored 67 and 73 points. It’s not enough to overcome CSKA lockdown defense.
CSKA: CSKA hold unusual 4th place in standings but no one doubts that it is a temporary thing. CSKA’s winning streak ended in the game vs Khimki but Dimitris Itoudis squad made homework. In next 2 weeks after Leningradka Derby CSKA best Basconia, Zalgiris and Bayern in a row taking 2nd place in Euroleague. Against Bayern Nikita Milutinov was bright, he adapted to CSKA playing model and spent the best game for CSKA 18 points and 12 rebounds. The Serbian played well in the first game against PARMA (13+5), thus the result of the game may depend on Ural finding or not finding the way to stop him in the paint (Milutinov and Bolomboy domination in the paint became one of the key factors of the win over Bayern).
