St. Petersburg and Moscow will host 2 regular season games on Friday.
Zenit (St. Petersburg) vs. CSKA (Moscow)
Time: 19:30 (Moscow time)
Place: Russia, St. Petersburg, CSC Arena
Broadcast: Match! Igra, TV Start, League website
Zenit: Zenit played only 2 games in February, and both were different. After losing the end of the game and then the entire game to Enisey, Zenit beat Lokomotiv Kuban by 39 points. Although Xavier Pascual team couldn’t catch up with the Krasnodar team in the standings, the win clearly added to the optimism. A home win against CSKA would be a good start to a decisive regular season stage. Zenit has a tough road trip ahead: 4 of their next 5 games will be with flights to Perm and Krasnoyarsk.
CSKA: Emil Rajkovic team had a disappointing February. After losing to UNICS, the Army team lost to PARMA for the second time in a row. In fact, CSKA has lost more games to PARMA this season than in the entire 14-game rivalry history. As a result, the Moscow team is now only 1 win away from second-place UNICS. The situation for CSKA is complicated due to Casper Ware injury. The announced move to Will Barton team didn’t happen, so the Army team coaching staff will have to figure out how to compensate for Ware absence – in the 2 wins against Zenit this season, the American guard was the best scoring player of the team (17 and 28 points).
MBA (Moscow) vs. Samara (Samara)
Time: 20:00 (Moscow time)
Place: Russia, Moscow, Basket Hall
Broadcast: Start Triumph, League website
MBA: The Moscow team ended February with defeating Nizhny Novgorod, allowed only 50 points to score and ended a 5-game losing streak. MBA will play twice at home and then travel to play against MINSK, which is still winless. However, the Moscow team need to beat Samara first, and the team hasn’t managed to do that yet: the Volga team has beaten the rivals twice this season with almost identical scores (76:65 and 77:65).
Samara: The win is also very important for Samara: the team will have to play a lot of road games in the next month, and every road win is worth its weight in gold for the main pursuer of Uralmash. The Volga team had a good break, defeating the Russian national team in a friendly game, even though didn’t play with the main team. Despite the road nature of the game, Samara can be considered the favorite – especially considering that Drazen Anzulovic team needs to rehabilitate for the home game against Runa. After the game, Samara coach noted that his team didn’t play seriously, so the Volga team will have plenty of motivation. In addition, it’s unlikely that the Moscow team will surprise the guests in defense – MBA is third from the bottom in average scoring (75.3 points per game).
