BK Uralmash Yekaterinburg - Parma Permsky Kray predictions and free betting tips [25/12/2023]

In the second matchup of today's regular season game day for the United VTB League, Uralmash and Parma will go head-to-head.

Uralmash Yekaterinburg

Their first match against the champion of the season before last, Zenit, was a splendid testament to the sound judgement of the league's decision-making committee: a sensational victory of 70:75 sparked hope this season would be one of the most level in the tournament's history.
In the second round, their fire was quenched by their eternal Super League rivals, Moscow's Runa (78:85). The third round ended in a loss once more, this time against Saratov's Avtodor (77:87). They managed to pull themselves out of the slump in yet another game against a notable favourite, beating last season's finalist, Lokomotiv-Kuban, on their home ground.
However, the league winner, Unics from Kazan, showed that the audacious ranks of the newcomers are not capable of defeating all favourites (94:67).
In their next match, Uralmash clinched a hard-fought victory over Parma from Perm (74:78).
In their latest clash, the Ural side lost to CSKA, falling away from home (71:53).
The continuation of their away series in Minsk culminated in the Ural side's first 'century' of the season (73:101).
But sadly, the following two matches resulted in losses.
These slip-ups were remedied thanks to a win in Moscow against the local MBA (87:90), as well as at home against Yenisei (76:73).
During the home match against Zenit, Uralmash held their own throughout but proved less experienced than their adversary. The Ural side once again fell to Runa in Moscow (86:82).
The losing streak was broken in their final match against Avtodor from Saratov (87:98). Yet, unfortunately for the Ural fans, this proved to be a one-off.

Parma

The Perm side started with a sensational overtime win against last season's finalist, Lokomotiv-Kuban (85:87). They then suffered three consecutive defeats from Parimatch-Nizhny Novgorod (61:67), CSKA (77:76) and Runa (70:64). They managed to snap out of this unfortunate streak with a win over the league's weakest team, Minsk (78:73). However, in the following match, Parma once again lost in the final quarter to a league newcomer, this time Uralmash (74:78).

The game against MBA was even throughout, hinting at an overtime, but the Perm team proved to be stronger in the final and claimed a surprising and critical victory for themselves (79:83). However, they failed to build on this success and enter the playoff zone. In a gruelling away game in Krasnoyarsk, Parma's defence fell apart and they let in 92 points from Yenisei.

The next match against the 2021-2022 United League champion, Zenit from St. Petersburg, saw Parma demonstrating a more productive defence, but the hosts tightly locked down Parma's leaders CJ Brice and Isaiah Reese (only 12 points jointly), limiting the team to a mere 54 points.
The game against UNICS was much tighter, but it also ended in a defeat (77:87), as did the one against Samara (85:83).
They made up for these losses with six consecutive victories: against Avtodor (89:93), MBA (77:56), Lokomotiv-Kuban (73:67), Parimatch-Nizhny Novgorod (72:74), Runa from Moscow (85:74) and the championship leader, CSKA (82:78).
Thanks to these victories, the Perm side broke into the top six.

Head-to-head

In the last head-to-head encounter, the Ural team clinched the victory (74:78).

Match prediction

The Perm club virtually breezes past its opponents' resistance in wintertime and can easily be hailed as the revelation of the championship's first half. It's rather challenging for me to account for such odds. Only the intoxicating victory over CSKA and the raucous crowd in Yekaterinburg might prevent Parma from winning today. Nevertheless, I believe the Perm team will handle the challenge.