This is a meeting of the bottom two, but the two teams are not built the same way any more. Mobis lost Gage Prim to a knee ligament tear and now has only one import, Darius Bezley. KCC still has both Sean Long and Louis King. In a league where both imports can be on the floor in the middle quarters, that difference lands in a window Mobis cannot hide from.
KCC is a scoring team with a bad defence. It scores about 86 a game, runs Heo Hoon's pick-and-roll with its two imports, and gives up the most points in the league. It also tends to fall apart late, with turnovers and a thin rotation in the fourth quarter. Mobis, without Prim, is basically Bezley plus guard threes. In the one game since the injury, a heavy home loss to Samsung, Bezley played 36 minutes and scored 33, and the rest of the team scored 38 between them.
The key matchup is the second and third quarters. That is when KCC can put Long and King on the floor together against Bezley and a domestic big, and against no import at all whenever Bezley sits. Long has been a monster on the offensive glass, and Mobis has no other rim protector. The Mobis coach has already said Bezley needs rest and is overloaded with help defence. Each minute he rests in those quarters is two imports against none.
The lineup picture is current: Prim is out for weeks with no replacement reported for this match, and Long, King, Heo Hoon and Heo Woong all played KCC's last game.
I expect the first quarter to stay close, with Bezley against Long at home on rested legs. KCC should build its lead through the middle quarters on second chances and Heo Hoon's two-man game. Mobis can win some back in the fourth, but by then Bezley will be carrying a lot of minutes.
That's why I'm siding with KCC to win this one by more than a single basket. The middle-quarter import gap is a real, current mechanism, and Mobis's best counter depends on its guards having a hot shooting night.
