President of the VTB United League, Sergei Kushchenko, shared his thoughts after the first games of the playoff semifinal series. He emphasized that both matches featured basketball of a fundamentally higher quality, making the series highly intriguing.
Kushchenko noted, “It’s clear that in the playoffs, basketball reaches a completely different level of quality and intensity. It’s like two distinct philosophies: the regular season and the playoffs. That’s why we love this game. This season is unique—for the first time, both opening semifinal games went into overtime. What stands out in the playoffs is how teams like Zenit, Lokomotiv, and even UNICS—who lost players to injuries and brought in new ones—have reorganized and transformed into completely new units.”
He added, “The most important thing for the league is that these semifinal series now look incredibly intriguing and will go up to four wins. I can only congratulate our fans and all of us on how the semifinals have started. We have a fantastic basketball story ahead of us for almost the entire month of May.”
