Lokomotiv Kuban vs. Tofas. EuroCup. Preview

Lokomotiv Kuban plays against Tofas at home in Game 3 of EuroCup on October 17th.

The Take

Lokomotiv Kuban stays undefeated in domestic games at the start of the season. Zenit in the VTB United League and Limoges in EuroCup have already been beaten there.

https://youtu.be/DIsQS67r-pY

Loko plays spectacular basketball but still doesn’t show its maximum. After two games, Krasnodar averages 83 points and lets in 68.5 points. The new Lokomotiv is quicker and easily plays run-and-gun basketball without focusing on suffocating defense. St. Petersburg got into the trap. Limoges failed to catch up with Loko as well. Whether Tofas will face the same destiny, we’ll see.

Last season, the Bursa team surprised all Turkey when it advanced to the finals of the domestic championship. Now it’s time for Europe. At the moment, obviously, Orhun Ene’s team sets big goals – at least getting to play-offs.

By Round 3, Tofas leads the competition in points (93.5). But they let in the same amount of points. Defensive problems will be revealed at later stages of the tournament, if the team doesn’t deal with them in the regular season. However, at the moment, they don’t prevent Tofas from hammering Arka Gdynia at home.

Opponent

The Turkish roster is in age. Garrett and Kadji are 30-something. Weems will be 30 in a month.

Garrett is the top scorer of Tofas at the moment. However, in Round 2, Kenny Kadji made a serious statement on the topic. The Cameroonian deserved MVP of the Round getting 27 points and 10 rebounds with 37 PIR!

Loko

As for Loko, it has a lot of leaders in various categories. On the picture above, Johnson, Khvostov, and McLean can easily be replaced by Whitehead – and the stats won’t change. Isaiah is also the top scorer but he is chased by Fall (12.5), Ponitka (11.5), and Johnson (10).

Nevertheless, all of them have a very competitive rival – Dorell Wright has almost found his game in the new club. The American successfully attempted all his two-pointers this season but didn’t net a downtown shot yet. Let’s wait a bit and see who will suffer from the weapon.

Quotes

The game will be against another great team. They are very physical like all Turkish teams. They share the ball very well. They play nice team basketball. So I believe for us it’s going to be another great exam how we can play as a team and try to win as a team, especially trying to be a system. We have to play our game and try to be maximally aggressive on our home court. This is going to be the key.

Mateusz Ponitka, Forward of PBC Lokomotiv Kuban

Where-When

Lokomotiv Kuban plays against Tofas in Krasnodar on October 17th at 8:00 p.m. Moscow time.