 VS 
Chorale Roanne - AXA FC Barcelona Chorale Roanne will look to remain hot at home when it hosts AXA FCB Barcelona in a Group C clash on Wednesday in Clermont Ferrand, France. The French champion has won its last two home games to improve to 3-6 in the group and return to the fight for a ticket to the Top 16. Meanwhile Barca has won five in a row and sits in second place in the group with a 7-2 mark. Mario Kasun scored a season-high 22 points to lead Barcelona to an 82-76 win when these teams last met in November.
Roanne’s leader is power forward Marc Salyers, who leads the Euroleague this season in scoring. Slayers will match up with Barca’s mobile forward Jordi Trias in just one of many intriguing head-to-head duels. The visitors depth at the forward spots means that Fran Vazquez and Ersan Ilyasova could also spend time on Salyers. Inside, Pape Badiane is Roanne's answer to Kasun. The ever-improving Marc-Antoine Pellin, who leads the Euroleague in assists, will pit his skills against Barcelona’s Jaka Lakovic, while Brion Rush takes on Gianluca Basile and Pepe Sanchez. Small forward Adam Hess, who compliments Salyers perfectly with his mix of rebounding and outside shooting, will go up against Barca’s athletic Alex Acker. Perhaps Barcelona's biggest advantage is its depth, with players like veteran center Denis Marconato, Vazquez, swingman Roger Grimau and Sanchez all coming off the bench. The midseason signing of Ron Hale alongside Pierric Poupet has upgraded the Roanne bench. Barcelona will target stopping Salyers and Pellin to break down the Roanne attack, though it is worth noting that Rush averaged 22.3 points on 55% three-point shooting, 3.3 assists and 2 steals in his team’s victories thus far. At the other end, Roanne must attend to Kasun inside, while preventing Lakovic from controlling the game with his scoring and passing abilities. Though Barcelona has had the better run so far, Roanne’s home-court advantage and confidence make this game a tough one to predict, where the only things certain are that there will be not shortage of points nor excitement. IVANOVIC, DUSKO
AXA FCB Barcelona head coach
"This is a very important match for us in order to keep on getting more wins. They are a team difficult to beat, especially at home. They like to play the fast break and they make it with all the players, including the big ones. We have to take care of their offensive rebounding because they are among the best teams in the Euroleague and that gives them a lot of second options. They have a new player in Hale, an outside man with a good shooting touch. He’s a good basketball placer."
XAVI PASQUAL
AXA FCB Barcelona second coach
"At home, without a doubt, they are much better. They are capable of running with all his men, with any of its external 'dribbling', or play with their past big men who are very good and are going very well in the offensive rebound to counterattack. In the first seconds of their attack, they do it very well. "
Occasionally these three point shots that get a bit allocated make you leave a bit of good mental balance within the party. We have to be strong because there will be moments where they live in the euphoria of those quick shots and your audience. Therefore we have to be very strong mentally to stay on the same line 40 minutes. "
BASILE, GIANLUCA
AXA FCB Barcelona guard
"We have to win this match because we want to forget our Spanish League defeat in Minorca as soon as possible. We know Chorale Roanne is a good team. It wasn’t an easy game when we played them in Barcelona. We know for sure this will be a difficult game, but we have to play at our best from the beginning. Salyers is a skilled player. He can go to the low post and look for an outside shot as well. We need to take care of him."
Betting overviewI can't say that I see really big value in this line but for medium-low stake it looks good. First game ended with 158 points total but if you will take closer look into game stats you will see that game was played in Roanne tempo with 174 possessions from both teams. For Barcelona normal posession amount is usually around 158-165. So Barcelona did not find a way to stop Roanne offensive basketball even playing at home. And I hardly seem them involving low-tempo defensive basketball away from home. It was much easier to "play better defense" in away match against low tempo teams like Roma, Brose Baskets, Panathinaikos or Fenerbahche but against Roanne I can't see low tempo game.
Roanne already proved that at home they are playing highly offensive basketball with average home total 184 points (away total is only 154 points). Also Barcelona coaches said that they are not going to slow tempo but will try to play in Roanne style. Maybe it's a good solution because Roanne don't have true centers and could meet big problems under baskets. I think that Barcelona's game plan will be to outscore and outrebound Roanne as PAO did by winning 123-83.
I think that 165-167.5 points line is more fair than 162-163 points line. Most of bookies already moved the line to 164.5-165 total - this line represent only small value, but 162.5 is still available. Anyway I expect this game going to 168-172 points total because I think that both teams have good chances to score over 80 points.
Prediction: Choralle Roanne 83 - 88 Barcelona
Pick: Over 162.5 @ 1.85 Bet-at-home 4/10 Unicaja Malaga - Armani Jeans Milano
Unicaja will try to win this game and secure their place in Top-16, while AJ Milano is already out of this competition. From the first sight we have 2 different motivation but these days Unicaja is more focused on domestic championship and would be not be surprised to see extended minutes of reserve players in such Euroleague games where both teams knows what they wants. Statistically AJ Milano is not allowing their opponents to score over 80 points (only 3 games since November when Milano opponent managed to score 80+ points) and here I see biggest risk if you are thinking of backing Unicaja's handicap. AJ Milano is scoring 70 points in most of their games and also they are playing smart positional basketball now and I expect a bit borrying basketball game today in Malaga. Maybe under could be an option here because if Unicaja will fail to score over 80 points they will be forced to turn on their defense where they can hold anyone under 70 points.
Prediction: Unicaja 78 - 68 AJ Milano
Lean: Under 150.5
CSKA Moscow - KK Union Olimpija Ljubljana
This game is important for CSKA because everyone in Russia expect to see revenge for that loss in Ljubliana. Players also understand this and I hope they want this revenge but there are some factors to have in mind before you bet on CSKA handicap. First and the most important as for me is that on January 5th CSKA have much more important game from sporting point of view against Dynamo Moscow where they also need to take revenge with big margin (so Messina could try to save some mental energy in this game vs Olimpija). Second factor is that Goree,Vorontsevich are questionable for this game as well as Savrasenko and Smodish are out since November. But injuries are not important for CSKA because with defensive style and system they can beat anyone with 20+ margni even with 5-6 players.
I expect to see 20+ points win for CSKA but I don't think that we have value here as a bettors. Also Under152 points could be a good option for betting because in my opinion Olimpija will meet huge problems in offense and I hardly seem them scoring more than 65-66 points while CSKA should be capable of scoring around 82-85 points.
Prediction: CSKA 83 - 61 Olimpija
Lean: CSKA (-20.5), Under 152.5
Panathinaikos AO - KK Partizan Beograd
Another big favorite against clear match outsider. I don't like such games because it's hard to predict real team motivation before the game starts and such handicaps in such matches is only a matter of motivation. Panathinaikos this time would not lose this game as it was last year because they are still fighting for Group winner tittle and with hard travels to Barcelona and Madrid scheduled later they can't lose points against Beograd team which is more than one class avove PAO level. On other side there is no obligations on greeks to trash "friendly" opponent because they won against them away.
Statistically, I see small value in Under157.5 because Partizan fails to score points away from home in Euroleague and with Pao style of play I expect Partizan to score under 70 points. But on other side we have PAO which can score 85-90 any night and I expect them to score at least 78-80 today. More fair PAO total line should be 84.5 according to my estimations but I would not be surprised to see one sided game here with Pao scoring in 85-90 and Partizan around 65-70 points. So 154.5 points is expected total from my point of view but it is also very hard option for betting.
Prediction: Panathinaikos 85 - 68 Partizan
Lean: Under 157.5, Partizan under 71
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