This will be the opponents’ 66th game in the VTB United League, not to mention 6EuroCup games (the 2016/17 and 2018/19 quarterfinals) and the 2021 Super Cup 3rd-place game. UNICS has won 40 times against us so far, while we’ve won 32. However, the overall goal difference is +8 in Lokomotiv’s favor: 5734 to 5726.
Velimir Perasović‘s team won our first-round game in Kazan on October 15, 74:63. Overall, they’ve suffered only two losses this season, despite playing with an 8-man rotation in their last 3 games.
The only player who has consistently started all 18 of UNICS’s games is Marcus Bingham, one of the biggest revelations of the season. The 25-year-old center leads his team in points (17.7), rebounds (7.6), steals (1.5), and blocks (1.8), while also shooting an impressive 39.6% of his three-pointers (1.1 of 2.7 attempts per game).
Another center for the Kazan team, Jalen Reynolds, is also having an impressive season: 17.3 points, 4.4 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 1.2 steals, 0.6 blocks, and a long-range shooting percentage that would make most of the league envious – 42.4% (1.4 out of 3.3 attempts).
Another key big man on our opponent’s current roster is power forward Dyshawn Pierre. He’s averaging 12.8 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 2.0 assists, while opponents foul him an average of 4.3 times (on UNICS, only the injured point guard Paris Lee, with 4.5, has more).
Russian basketball legend Alexey Shved recently extended his contract with the Kazan club until the end of the season. The 37-year-old shooting guard has quite impressive stats: 9.3 points on 40.8% three-point shooting (2.0 of 4.9), 2.9 rebounds, and 6.5 assists (3rd in the league behind Paris Lee and Patrick Miller).
Dmitry Kulagin is another Russian legend. This season, the shooting guard is playing the most minutes per game for UNICS (26.49), averaging 9.5 points, shooting 40.3% from afar (1.7 of 4.3), grabbing 2.5 rebounds, 3.9 assists, and 1.2 steals.
Besides Kulagin, Denis Zakharov, who played for Lokomotiv in the 2016/17 season, also has experience playing for our main team. His statistics this season may not look impressive (3.8 points, 1.1 rebounds, 0.9 assists, 0.7 steals), but the shooting guard has been consistently playing his 18 minutes per game and is a key element of the team’s play, built by Perasović.
The outcome of our October game against UNICS was largely determined by Andrei Lopatin‘s two long-range shots in the 4th quarter. This season, the power forward averages 1.2 three-pointers out of 3.2 attempts, helping him average 7.8 points. Lopatin also has 3.8 rebounds and 1.5 assists, and his plus-minus (+11.9) is second only to Paris Lee‘s +17.0.
Rounding out the list of 8 players who played in UNICS’s previous game is small forward Mikhail Belenitsky. His season stats are 5.3 points, 4.8 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 0.9 steals, and 0.3 blocks. His plus/minus is 4th on the team: +9.9.
The Basket Hall will open to fans at 3:00 PM. See you in the stands! Go, Loko!