Cibona will look to bounce back from its first loss when it hosts suddenly red-hot Air Avellino on Wednesday at the Drazen Petrovic Basketball Center in Zagreb, Croatia. Cibona started the season on fire and won its first three games before going down two weeks ago at Unicaja. Still the Cibona shares the Group A lead with a 3-1 record. Meanwhile Air Avellino worked out the early season jitters to win its last two games and improve to 2-2. But head coach Zare Markovski’s men are still looking for their first road win. The game will surely be an interesting one due to the return of Chris Warren, Avellino’s top player, to Cibona, where he spent the last three seasons. Warren has stepped right in as the most important player for his new team and he ranks second in the Euroleague in scoring and is second on Avellino in both rebounds and assists. With all eyes on Warren, it will be interesting to see if the welcome he receives takes him out of focus, or if the return to his former home causes him to be extra motivated. If his former teammates have the recipe to slow him down, Cibona becomes the clear favorite to win, but if Warren’s familiarity with the hoops in Zagreb leads to a big game, Avellino could get its first road win.

This game is very important for both teams because winner will have much more chances and less pressure in achieving Top-16 stage. Both teams looks very strong in defense in last 5 games: Cibona allowing only 73.5 pts per game while Avellino has even tougher defense with 70.5 pts per game allowed. Neither of teams plays in high pace but both are very dangerous from 3 point line where defense will be very tough tonight. Avellino doesn't have enough players to score points because of short and not very productive bench so expect italians to slow down tempo of the game and slowing down Cibona offense even more. Cibona on other side will try use its bench to make their defense more physical and in the end it should help them to win this game. But I can't see this game high-scoring because of its importance for both clubs and  Avellino trend: 10 of 11 official games of Avellino ended with total under 155.5 points.

Also I can't see Avellino as 8.5 underdog here. I expect much closer game but unfortunately for Avellino Cibona's Euroleague experience and home crowd support making them favorite to win this game but I expect 4-8 points win.

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