Yesterday was a very bad day for me. I would not be surprised to see today many logicalness results so my only advice is to avoid bets on fair lines. Today I decided to post prediction only for one game because there I think there is a slight advantage over the bookies' line. I can't say that this is totally wrong line it looks like a fair but some small details are talking for my side favorite. I hope that luck will be on my side today.

A pair of Spanish-League rivals will meet again when AXA FC Barcelona hosts Unicaja in both teams’ Top 16 Group G opener. These teams are meeting in the Euroleague for the third straight season. Last year Unicaja beat Barca 2-1 in the Quarterfinal Playoffs to advance to the Final Four for the first time in club history. Unicaja won again when they met in December in the Spanish League. Marcus Haislip scored 24 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to push Unicaja to a 77-62 victory. The two teams are also coming off a disappointing weekend after each lost in the quarterfinal round of the Spanish King’s Cup. Barca lost three of its last four regular season games en route to a third place finish in Group C, while Unicaja lost its last two road games as it finished this in Group B. The visitors will have a new face on display after signing point guard Terrel Castle, who takes the spot of the injured Carlos Cabezas. Barcelona also padded its backcourt during the break by signing Gary Neal. These teams know each other very well and have similar strengths, which should make for an exciting game. One player who is sure to take on a big role is Barca playmaker Pepe Sanchez, who spent the previous three seasons at Unicaja. Sanchez, Jaka Lakovic, Alex Acker and Gianluca Basile are joined by Neal in making up the hosts’ backcourt, which will be challenged by an equally deep squad consisting of Jiri Welsch, Davor Kus, Bojan Popovic, Castle and team captain Berni Rodriguez. The depth extends to the paint as well, where Barca leans on Denis Marconato, Jordi Trias, Fran Vazquez and Mario Kasun, while Unicaja counters with Haislip, Daniel Santiago and Boniface Ndong, among others. As always in matchups between deep teams that know each other well, the coaches could try to make the difference with a surprise tactical move and with two of the game’s best on the sidelines, Dusko Ivanovic for Barca and Sergio Scariolo for Unicaja, that could be the case.

Betting analysis

Loss of Cabezas should affect on Unicaja game on both ends of the court. I doubt that Scariolo will use Castle a lot in his first match while Popovic and Kus can't organize team play. Also they are not very strong in defense. I hardly see how Unicaja's guards will close Lakovic, Sanchez and Basile in defense. Also Haislip was not able to train during whole week because of gastroenteritis and is questionable for this game. Ndong and Santiago also had some troubles with health but expected to play. Anyway Barcelona have very deep and athletic front line to avoid problems under baskets. So talking about match ups looks like Barcelona will have serious advantage on guards line where they are very dangerous.

Talking about motivation Barcelona looks highly concentrated on this game especially after lose in quarterfinal in King's Cup. Coaches, players, management are highly motivated to show their real face in very important against well known opponent from Malaga. Also this game is a revenge-type game. Barcelona must revenge for last 2 losses to Malaga. Unicaja won this season game at home by 15 pts, and won last year Euroleague playoffs 3rd game. Barcelona last year won both games against Unicaja at home by 22 and 17 points and I expect another confident win today. Points difference could be very important at the end of Top-16 so I expect to see Barcelona playing in defense against injury weakened Unicaja for all 40 minutes. With home crowd support Barcelona like to play big games and this game looks like really important.

Prediction: Unicaja guards should meet a lot of problems with holding game tempo and controlling a team. Barcelona looks much better in this component and if Unicaja will allow Barcelona to dictate tempo this game will be decided in first half. Without Cabezas, and poor offensive form of Welsch & B.Rodriguez I expect to see Unicaja scoring in 60-66 pts range while Barcelona with their deep bench and concentration should be able to score about their home average (77.5 points). My prediction is Barcelona to win by 9-15 points.

Predicted score: Barcelona 77 - 64 Unicaja

Pick: Barcelona (-6) @ 1.88 4/10 Expekt.com