CHALON-SUR-SAÔNE (FIBA Europe Cup Final Four) -We take a look at the second Semi-Final clash at the FIBA Europe Cup Final Four in which Fraport Skyliners go up against Enisey Krasnoyarsk, Friday at 21:00 CET.

One team is going to great lengths to denounce the role of the favourite while the other is embracing the role of the underdog ahead of the second Semi-Final in Chalon-sur-Saône.

There are no prizes for guessing that the first one is Fraport Skyliners, the German side who arrives at the Final Four propelled by the best record in the competition, 16-1.

"I really don't think we are the favourite," Skyliners head coach Gordon Herbert reiterated on Thursday, echoing the stance several of his players have expressed in previous days.

"Enisey are a good team that has played against tough competition this year in the VTB League and the FIBA Europe Cup and they beat Turk Telekom [Ankara] and Cibona [Zagreb] to get here," the Canadian tactician added.

Enisey agree of course they have paid their dues to reach the season-ending event, but they also know that few people expected them to make it this far.

The Russian team are ok with it.

But they are also keen to show that they did not travel six time-zones from Siberia to France just to make up the numbers.

"We are not here on a tourist visit," is how Enisey head coach Oleg Okulov put it.

They are also aware that for them to compete against Frankfurt, they will have to figure out a way to puncture the German team's lock-down defence.

Skyliners allow a stingy 65.8 points per game in the FIBA Europe Cup, as the best defensive team in the competition. It is not a fluke, as they also top the defensive ratings in the German Beko BBL.

"They follow defined rules on defence and it's the most important aspect for them," said Enisey captain Pavel Sergeev.

"They have been building on this for years and it's going to be tough for us to break through that defence.

"We have to run and score easy points in transition.

"In a lot of games this season, either in the VTB League or in the FIBA Europe Cup, whenever we had good transition offence and ran on the fast-break we won.

"Even against the best teams like Khimki [Moscow Region] or Unics [Kazan] we had stretches that we ran the floor and we gave them huge problems."

That's plan A for the Russian team, but even if they execute to perfection they will still need to find open looks in half-court play. Especially from behind the three-point arc, where they struggled in the play-off series against Cibona.

Enisey went 3-of-21 from downtown in Game 2 and 4-of-20 in Game 3 of that series.

"It was a problem for us in the last games," conceded Sergeev.

"Against Frankfurt, it is very important to score from the perimeter.

"If we do they will not be able to give good help and it will open up possibilities to penetrate, to pass better, everything is linked together."

Enisey have one final aspect to be aware of and that has nothing -or little- to do with Frankfurt's defensive efficiency.

While three-quarters of the Skyliners' roster has had the experience of a Final Four, as they reached that stage in the last edition of the EuroChallenge, Enisey's players and the club in general have never tasted the special conditions and pressure which an event like this generates.

Then again, the Final Four format is famous for producing upsets that contradict previous form in the competition and pre-game expectations.

Key Stats: Frankfurt score 2.6 points less than Enisey per game and generally go to less and longer possessions, but are more efficient with them. The German team shoot 56.4% from two-point range, when Enisey shoot 53.2% on average. The Skyliners' average three-point field goal percentage is 38.7% when Enisey's is 31%, the lowest among all teams who made it as far as the Quarter-Finals. Enisey are also the team which averages the least assists among the four semi-finalists, 15.8 per game, when Frankfurt dish out 18.2 assists on average. The Russian team however take better care of the ball, committing 13 turnovers per game to Frankfurt's 14.3. Enisey also have an advantage over Frankurt and indeed over all three other teams at the Final Four when it comes to rebounding. They average 37.9 boards per game and 11.1 of those come on the offensive end, enabling the Russian side to score vital second-chance points.

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 FIBA