On Saturday, Perm and Saratov will host 2 regular season games.
Saturday, December 11
PARMA-PARIMATCH (Russia) vs. Lokomotiv Kuban (Russia)
Time: 13:30 (11:30 Moscow time)
Location: Russia, Perm, UDS Molot
Broadcast: Match TV, League website
Rivalry history: 9 games, Lokomotiv Kuban — 8 wins, PARMA – 1 win
PARMA-PARIMATCH: This week PARMA started in the 2nd stage of the FIBA Europe Cup. The beginning was successful — the Perm team beat Legia, and young Alexander Platunov scored 18 points. But the key game for PARMA will take place on Saturday — in case of a win over Lokomotiv Kuban, Kazys Maksvytis’ team will not only equal Loko in the standings, but will also bypass the Krasnodar team.
Lokomotiv Kuban: After a very unsuccessful game with CSKA (Loko failed to cross the 70-point mark for the 1st time in the season), Loko rehabilitated in the EuroCup, defeating Trento. In this game, the fans saw the familiar, classic Loko, which scored 97 points and let opponent score 95. Interestingly, despite 33 points and 11 rebounds from Jonathan Motley, the MVP of the Week went to Errick McCollum. His stats are also impressive — the Loko guard set a personal best in points in the EuroCup (29 points) and added 13 assists to this.
Who to follow: Jonathan Motley’s break in the season clearly benefited — after an unimpressive game with Zielona Gora in mid-November, Motley scored 20 points in the game with CSKA, where he was the only serious threat in Loko offense. And later, Motley literally tore up the Trento defense — if the American bigman retains this attitude by Saturday, then even the mighty Artsiyom Parakhouski will not be easy to guard him in the paint.
Avtodor (Russia) vs. Zielona Gora (Poland)
Time: 17:00 (16:00 Moscow time)
Location: Russia, Saratov, LDS Crystal
Broadcast: TV Start, League website
Rivalry history: 6 games, Zielona Gora — 5 wins, Avtodor – 1 win
Avtodor: Although Zielona Gora has an overwhelming advantage in personal games (Avtodor won the first and only game back in March 2019), this time it is Emil Rajkovicj’s team that will be considered the unequivocal favorite of the game. A 5-game winning streak allowed the Saratov team to climb to the 2nd place in the standings. And with a successful combination of circumstances, Avtodor can already bypass UNICS in this round – after all, back in October, the Volga Region inflicted the 1st loss of the season on Velimir Perasovic’s team. In the FIBA Europe Cup, Avtodor defeated Bakken this week, although not without difficulty, and the main creators of the win were Zeljko Sakic and Jaron Johnson, who scored 45 points out of 96 team points for two.
Zielona Gora: The Polish squad settled on the penultimate line of the standings, having won only 1 game in 8 games. For sure, the Polish team will try to break the unsuccessful series this Saturday, but so far there are no special background for this. If Avtodor is currently the most resultative team in the League (93.1 points) with a 5-game winning streak, then Zielona Gora lost all 5 of its road games, and with an average difference 21 points. So far, there are only 2 teams in the League that have never been able to win a game on road — Zielona Gora and Tsmoki-Minsk.
What to follow: the main feature of Avtodor this season is that the opponent never knows who in the Saratov team will shoot in a single game. If the hero of the game with UNICS was Jaron Jackson, then Zeljko Sakic shone in the game with Astana, and Philip Scrubb showed his skills in Krasnoyarsk. Considering that Avtodor also has Kenny Chery (22 points in the game with Nizhny Novgorod) and DJ Funderburk in the roster, it will not be easy for the guests to build a defensive strategy for this game.
