Prometey - Hamburg
International - Eurocup, Playoffs, Round of 16
How to describe the game of the Ukrainian team Prometey on the eve of the Eurocup round of 16 - except for the fact that it is a team with 38 victories in the last 40 matches in all competitions.
How well Prometey is playing is perfectly demonstrated by those two defeats, the only ones since mid-November. The Ukrainians lost both matches in overtime! Such was their defeat on April 1, against Viimsi team 107:105 in the Latvia-Estonian League.
Prometey finished the Eurocup group stage in first place in the group, with a convincing score of 14-4. Tonight in Riga, Latvia, they will host Germany's Hamburg, a team that was only in eighth place in its group with a modest 6-12 record. Hamburg has lost three of its last five matches and will be a certain outsider, after a long trip to Latvia, where Prometey are playing as hosts due to the war in Ukraine.
When it comes to the Eurocup, Prometey won 11 times in a row – the last time they lost was on December 6, away to the French team Bourg 92:85. Since then, the Ukrainian representative has beaten much better teams than Hamburg. For example, this spring, the excellent German Ulm away 83:78 on March 8.
Prometey will be in a situation where they have to show that they are ready to handle the role of favorite in the duel with Hamburg. The rules of the Eurocup are such that the play-off is played in the format of only one match to advance. Thus, the host will be under additional pressure, aware that in the round of 16 against Hamburg, they don't have the luxury of allowing defeat.
However, everything shows that Prometey is a much more coordinated and better attacking team. This is a team that scores as many as 88.5 points in the Eurocup on average - and Hamburg receives as many as 85.7 per match and scores 81.8 on average. In this match, the Ukrainians will not count on an important player in the rotation, Lukashov, due to an injury. However, the team that has fantastic 98.8 average index rating has enough quality options for realization.
Prometey's key player is guard Caleb Agada. He is not only the team's first scorer (15.4 points on average), but also an assistant (3.9 per match). However, perhaps the key quality of his game is defense, he has even 2.3 steals and 0.9 blocks on average.
The host's task will be to stop Yoeli Childs under the basket, who is both a key offensive option for Hamburg (14.1 points on average) and a rebounder (excellent 8.9 rebounds per match). However, it seems that Hamburg does not have enough quality options among guards to match the game of Prometey.
The previous weekend, Hamburg completely disappointed in the German BBL Bundesliga and lost as much as 112:78 away to Ulm. Against the favorites since the beginning of the year, almost without exception, they have convincingly lost games. The defeat against Gran Canaria at the end of March (86:73) best shows that this is a team limited in attack at the Eurocup level. Prometey is the clear favorite in the fight for the quarterfinals and for a reason.