St. Petersburg and Moscow will host 2 regular season gameson Sunday.
Zenit (St. Petersburg, Russia) vs. UNICS (Kazan, Russia)
Time: 16:00 (Moscow time)
Place: Russia, St. Petersburg, KSC Arena
Broadcast: Match TV, Start Triumph, League website
Zenit: Formally, the Game of the Week is a duel between the grands, contenders for leadership in the regular season. But in fact, Zenit (4 wins in 7 games) shares a place with a whole group of teams with the same stats. In the previous round, Zenit barely scratched out a win against Enisey only because of Ratan-Mayes miss game-winning shot. So Zenit has not overcome the problems at all. However, Xavier Pascual team has not the most difficult schedule (home game with PARMA and trips to Minsk and Saratov). Thomas Heurtel is still injured. But Trent Frazier replaced him really well against Enisey – 13 points and 14 assists (Frazier got only 2 turnovers).
UNICS: The game against Zenit will be the 42nd in the rivalry history. UNICS is leading, but only by a slim margin – 21 wins to Zenit 20. UNICS will try to avoid loss and Velimir Perasovic team can be considered the favourite. The loss against Samara didn’t depress the Kazan team for long, as the team followed up with solid wins over Avtodor and Astana. UNICS continues to lead the League in points per game (92.2 points), having scored less than 90 points in only one game (against Avtodor). One of the main factors that could help UNICS will be the obvious frontcourt domination. Louis Labeyrie, Jalen Reynolds need no introduction and Ismael Bako had his best game against Astana with 10 points, 12 rebounds and 5 blocks.
MBA (Moscow, Russia) vs. Astana (Astana, Kazakhstan)
Time: 19:30 (Moscow time)
Place: Russia, Moscow, Basket Hall Moscow.
Broadcast: Match! Igra, TV Start, League website
MBA: After the game with PARMA, Vasily Karasev complained about rsoter problems. The Moscow team coach is understandable: Daniil Kasatkin and Makar Konovalov managed to play only a few minutes and had little time to make an impact on the game. Whether they will be able to play against Astana has not been announced yet, so there is a risk that the entire responsibility for playmaking will by on Aleksandr Khomenko. At the same time, MBA weakened backcourt will have to face powerful and athletic Markell Johnson and Carvel Anderson.
Astana: 2 wins over tough opponents have encouraged Astana fans, but two consecutive games against CSKA and UNICS have shown that the Kazakh team can’t compete with them yet. Astana lost both games by nearly identical scores – 96-66 to CSKA and 96-65 to UNICS. However, now the team will face an opponent of roughly the same class and a team weakened by injuries. Oleg Kiselev team has been at its best in such games so far. At the same time, Astana has played the least number of games since the beginning of the season – only 4, so it has a good reserve. The game with MBA will be the last game of a 3-game road trip for the Kazakh team: Astana will play the next 3 games at home, but the team will certainly want to pick up at least one road win in this series.
