Prometey – Hamburg

Eurocup Group Stage Game 1

Riga, October 4, 18:00 CET

It seems that Prometey team is even stronger this season, after being one of the most pleasant surprises of the competition in the previous Eurocup. They can demonstrate that strength on Wednesday against Hamburg at the start of the group stage of the European competition.
The Ukrainian club will host matches in the Latvian capital Riga, and this team guarantees attractive, often spectacular attacking basketball. The squad counts on as many as six American players, who are dominant especially in the positions under the hoop.
The special strength of this team is the Polish center, 217-centimeter-tall Ondrej Balvin. Marcus Keene, the American playmaker, provides the team with a variety of good solutions - while the Americans Odiase and March are exceptional and physically dominant options in the wing positions. Centers Odiase and Floyd, guards Sidorov and Reed - are very good options from the bench. The reality is that this team, when inspired, can beat any of the favorites in the Eurocup.
The previous weekend, Prometey beat Viimsi 106:61 in the Latvia-Estonian League and it was the first official match for them this season. During the preparatory period, the powerful Ukrainian squad achieved three victories with only one defeat, against the Turkish team Karsiyak 89:84 in an exciting match played on September 23. However, in that game, the best players did not play with full minutes.
On the other hand, Hamburg started the new season extremely poorly. The German team was defeated 88:58 at home in the Bundesliga last weekend. The team has three defeats in the last five matches, of which essentially only the victory over Ludwigsburg 87:79 was a satisfactory edition.
Six important players left this team during the summer, and reinforcements arrived from clubs that are definitely from worse competitions and have not been proven at the level of a duel against one of the favorites in the Eurocup.
Injury to Ukrainian guard Lukashov will not worry the home team, which has enough options in the rotation to play 40 minutes at a high level. Looking at the current form, even a win for Prometey by less than double digits would be a surprise.
The teams have played one duel so far, in April this year Prometey won 87:79, and now the difference in the quality of these teams is only more pronounced than almost half a year ago. Also, it is very certain that the Ukrainian club will manage to score over 90 points in this match, with a good chance to get close to or pass the three-digit number of points.
Only once in the last five matches did Hamburg manage to reduce their opponents to less than 85 points, and that will be difficult to do for the German team now.