The Take
Nizhny Novgorod is the seventh participant of the VTB United League play-offs, even though nobody could imagine that in the mid of the season. Zoran Lukic’s team stepped up in the end of the season, especially in games against their direct rivals for play-offs. Nizhny defeated all of them except for VEF. At the same time, leaders of the League failed to hammer Nizhny. The only team that devastated the Volga squad was Loko.
The win over Avtodor that has recently defeated Khimki means that there are no weak teams in Top-8.
Lokomotiv Kuban has also worked out its standing issues. The win over Khimki let Krasnodar maintain on the third place of the regular championship. The Khimki game showed that Chris Babb is a great shooter, Loko is able to allow only 50 points in three quarters from a top club, and Obradovic’s team is still fighting the problem of black holes in the final quarter.
Nevertheless, Loko achieved a very important, primarily mentally important win thanks to Chris Babb.
Opponent
Jelovac is the third top scorer of the League after Shved and Brisco, the fifth top rebounder and has the third PIR. Uzinskii doesn’t get to top stealers of the championship but he made 5 steals in the Avtodor game. The team is different from the one that was hammered at the start of the season in Basket Hall.
Loko
In the Khimki game, three Loko players got more than 10 points. Babb scored 22, Ragland added 18+4, Elegar made double-double – 11+11. Mardy Collins didn’t play but if he did, he would have got his 13 points for sure. Probably, Mardy will play in Nizhny Novgorod.
Where-When
Lokomotiv Kuban plays against Nizhny Novgorod on May 12th at 6:00 p.m. Broadcasting by Lokobasket.com.
Previous on the VTB United League
Loko was the only team in the season that got more than a 20-point advantage in the Nizhny game. The final score of the game in Basket Hall was 94:64.