On Sunday, Krasnoyarsk and Krasnodar will host 2 regular season games.
October 17th, Sunday
Enisey (Russia) – UNICS (Russia)
Location: Russia, Krasnoyarsk, Arena Sever
Broadcast: TV Start, League website
Rivalry history:15 games, UNICS – 12 wins, Enisey – 3 wins
Enisey: Basketball Sunday will open with a game of teams that have not yet experienced the taste of wins. Enisey debuted in the last round with a game against Kalev, which so far has left more questions than it has given answers. The Siberians accelerated during the game, gave a powerful run and secured a comfortable advantage, but almost missed it in the last quarter, giving the opponents too much freedom on the perimeter. In a game against UNICS, which has a serious sniper brigade, this can be fatal. Enisey newcomer Casper Ware was a surprise, who played the first game in the League, scoring 20 points.
UNICS: This week, the Kazan team received a serious blow. In the Euroleague game versus Fenerbahce, Velimir Perasovic’s team failed to oppose the Turks, scoring only 41 points and losing -39. There is no doubt that the Kazan players will arrive in Krasnoyarsk with overwhelming motivation. Moreover, in the United League, UNICS is still playing very effectively, scoring an average of 94.0 points per game. Kazan has not lost to Enisey since 2019 — then, also in Krasnoyarsk, UNICS failed to find justice for Davion Berry, who now defends Kalev colors. The positive news is that O.J. Mayo has already passed a medical exam at UNICS and joined the team. This allows us to hope that the American guard will make his debut in one of the next games.
Who to follow: Mario Hezonja is still not playing as effectively as UNICS fans expected in the offseason: both in the Euroleague and in the United League, he scores a little more than 12 points average per game. The game against Enisey is an opportunity for Hezonja to rehab himself for an extremely unsuccessful game with Fenerbahce, in which the forward scored only 5 points.
Lokomotiv-Kuban (Russia) — Zenit (Russia)
Time: 14:00 ( Moscow time)
Location: Russia, Krasnodar, Basket Hall
Broadcast: Match TV, League website
Rivalry history: 18 games, Lokomotiv-Kuban — 11 wins, Zenit – 7 wins
Lokomotiv-Kuban: The Kuban team pleased its fans with a great game against Avtodor: the railwaymen set a resultaitve record of the season (108 points) and had an outstanding first quarter – 100% shots from the field! Eric McCollum and Jonathan Motley duo left no stone unturned from Avtodor defence. Of course, on Sunday Loko will have a game with an opponent of a different caliber, and the stats on the results of the first two or three games of the season are not very indicative, but so far the difference in average performance between Loko and Zenit is striking – more than 20 points (95.7 for Lokomotiv-Kuban against 72.0 for Zenit).
Zenit: After the sensational defeat to Astana, Xavi Pascual’s coaching staff has done serious work on mistakes. The duel with Bayern Munich in the Euroleague was not easy, but two defeatingly won quarters were enough for Zenit to defeat the Germans. The best player in St. Petersburg in this game (as in the first game of the season against Kalev) was Jordan Mickey, whose absence was very noticeable in the game against Astana – the American bigman scored Bayern 18 points, becoming the most resultative in his team.
Who to follow: there are a lot of players in the Zenit squad who once defended the Loko colors – these are Mindaugas Kuzminskas, Mateusz Ponitka, and Denis Zakharov. But the most fundamental, of course, will be Dmitry Kulagin’s confrontation with his former team: the Zenit guard, who missed the whole season due to contract disputes, will surely come to Krasnodar with unique motivation. Do not forget that after Shabazz Napier injury, Kulagin is almost Zenit’s most creative basketball player, and after the game against Bayern, he received personal praise from Xavi Pascual.
