On Thursday, 2 regular season games will be in Nur-Sultan and Minsk.
Thursday, February 17
Astana (Kazakhstan) — UNICS (Russia)
Time: 19:30 (16:30 Moscow time)
Location: Kazakhstan, Nursultan, Saryarka Bike Track
Broadcast: TV Start, League website
Rivalry history: 18 games, UNICS — 16 wins, Astana – 2 wins
Astana: 2 days before the game with UNICS, Astana managed to make history – with Anthony Hickey outstanding performance. Astana ended a 7-game losing streak, and Hickey made the 2nd greatest performance of the United League with 43 points, but was not enough to pass Stevan Elovac. Along the way, Hickey also made a triple-double – the 1st in the United League for 4 seasons. A brilliant win over the Loko allowed Astana to re-enter the 8th place race — only 1 win separates the team from Enisey, and Astana also has 2 games in reserve. After the game with Loko, Anthony Hickey made to the 1st place in the best scoring players list in the League, where his former teammate Jaylen Barford, who moved to Loko, had been permanently there before.
UNICS: After an epoch-making game over CSKA, UNICS doubled their success by beating Enisey. But the team should not relax yet — already in this round, Zenit can match them in the number of wins (12 in 15 games). However, for this, Zenit must win in the game with Tsmoki (which is quite possible), but Astana’s win over the Kazan team is not so likely. The last time Astana beat UNICS was almost 3 years ago. Kazan’s calendar is still hard: on February 22 and 24, they will have 2 away games in the Euroleague, so perhaps Velimir Perasovic will give some of his leaders a little rest.
Who to follow: With all due respect to Anthony Hickey’s record, on Thursday he will have to play against a much more powerful and organized defense led by the League’s best personal defender John Brown III. And, it seems, the status of great defender is achieved, so he wants more: in the game against Enisey, he became the team’s top scorer and got the first 3-pointer for UNICS, and scored 3 out of 3 that day (before that, he had 0 out of 13).
Tsmoki-Minsk (Belarus) — Zenit (Russia)
Time: 19:00 (Moscow time)
Location: Belarus, Minsk, Minsk-Arena
Broadcast: TV Start, League website
Rivalry history: 13 games, Zenit — 13 wins
Tsmoki-Minsk: The Minsk team created one of the biggest sensations of the last round, for the 1t time in the history of the League, the team came back after loosing by 27 points. Although Tsmoki still have only 2 wins this season, they have played only 10 games so far. However, the schedule does not spoil Rostislav Vergun’s team: after Zenit, the Minsk team will have to play with UNICS, another team from the Top 2. And after that, the Dragons are waiting for 2 games in a row against their main competitor — Astana. And by that time, their chances getting into the playoffs zone may become completely gone.
Zenit: Before the trip to Minsk, Xavi Pascual’s team warmed up in Poland, beating Zielona Gora. The starting 5 of Zenit surpassed the entire Polish team combined in points scored — 59:52. By the way, 52 points is the best defensive result of St. Petersburg this season. Of course, Tsmoki are inferior to a formidable opponent in almost all respects, but you should not underestimate the Minsk team — most recently, the Kalev clearly demonstrated to Zenit that even teams from the bottom of the standings are quite capable of giving battle to a top team.
What to follow: Tsmoki also held a record, or rather, an anti-record of the season — in the game with CSKA, the Minsk team managed to score only 44 points. It happened back in September, in the very 1st round, and since then Tsmoki has not allowed such mistakes anymore. But Zenit, which has been very tired over the past month, will probably play slow basketball with an accent on defensive actions, so Tsmoki offense (73.0 points per game) will have work hard to cope with Zenit defence led by Jordan Loyd.
