|
 VS 
Zalgiris vs Maccabi
Crucial Group F encounter takes place on Thursday in Kaunas, Lithuania, as Zalgiris hosts Maccabi Elite Tel Aviv at the S. Darius and S Girenas Sport Center. The game could be a turning point for both teams following their Top 16 opening results. Zalgiris lost a hard-fought contest at Real Madrid 88-85 and cannot afford to drop another game, certainly not at home, if it plans to advance to the Quarterfinal Playoffs for the first time. Meanwhile Maccabi scored a tough 67-75 win at Olympiacos Piraeus and would become a clear favorite to advance to the quarters if it started 2-0 with both wins on the road.
However the Israeli champs paid a stiff price that game as they lost big man Marcus Fizer for the rest of the season with a knee injury. His injury plus that of All-Euroleague center Nikola Vujcic sends Maccabi into this game against a stiff frontline with only three members of its big-man rotation available: January MVP Terence Morris, Esteban Batista and Lior Eliyahu. They will need to fend off the likes of Eurelijus Zukauskas, Paulius Jankunas, Mamadou N’Diaye, Goran Jurak and Damir Markota. Working in the visitors favor is the fact that both teams like to run and Maccabi could try to score many points in transition. In fact, the game pits this season’s assist leader, Zalgiris’s DeJuan Collins, against the top assisting team in Maccabi. Collins teams with all-time Euroleague Basketball leading scorer Marcus Brown and instant-offense sixth man Marko Popovic to create a strong backcourt that will challenge Maccabi’s depth with Yotam Halperin, Vonteego Cummings, Will Bynum, Alex Garcia and Derrick Sharp. At small forward, the hosts turn to Jonas “The Bull” Maciulis and Dainius Salenga against Maccabi shooter David Bluthenthal and rookie Omri Casspi. Both teams have plenty working in their favor: Zalgiris is 6-1 at home this season, while Maccabi has won six straight games. The key matchups will likely take place in the paint, where Maccabi will need Batista to steer clear of foul trouble and for Eliyahu to produce like he did last season to make up for Fizer and Vujcic. If Zalgiris dominates the paint, it becomes the clear favorite, however if Maccabi’s big men can hold their own and leave the guards the chance to make the difference, Maccabi becomes the better bet. Either way neither team will win easily in another Top 16 game destined to play out over 40 exciting minutes.
Excelent preview by Euroleague.net staff with all points described correctly. Maccabi without Vujcic and Fizer can experience many problems on both ends of the floor because Zalgiris with their new addiotions on power forward and center positions looks very promising. Today lithuanians frontline with Jankunas-Marcota-Jurak-Zukauskas-Ndjaje should prevail against injury shortened Maccabi front line with 3 healthy men Morris-E.Batiste and Elliahu. Sherf will be forced to use 2.05 m young Omri Casspi on power forwards position but I doubt that he will be able to compete against strong Zalgiris front line. The only Maccabi possible tactics is to play with small starting five and try to score more than Zalgiris but I doubt that Zalgiris will accept high tempo game today. With Collins on the court they like to play positional offense with killing 3-pointers at the end of posession.
Prediction: Zalgiris should win this game and finaly end that 0-13 losing streak on Top-16 stage. I am not a big fan of Zalgiris but today I think they have perfect chance to get their first win in Euroleague Top-16 in last 4 seasons. Odds and handicap already are dropping but there is still many bookies where you can get -2.5 for 1.80-1.85..
Predicted score: Zalgiris 85 - 76 Maccabi
Pick: Zalgiris (-2.5) @ 1.85 5/10 SportingBet, bet-at-home  VS 
Real Madrid vs. Olympiacos
Do or die game for Olympiacos but they against will be without Macijauskas who is very important (I would say too much important) player in this team. Without him they are have no depth and power in offense, also under new coach Olympiacos is playing much harder in defense and slower in offense. If they played low tempo at home against Maccabi with attacks around 20-22 seconds I hardly see them playing in another style in Madrid.
Looks like bookmakers set line correctly for this match. From first sight looks like 7.5-8 pts handicap is looking too much for Real Madrid but if Olympiacos against will fail in offense and would not overscore 70-points mark this handicap will be decided in the last minutes because Real scored less than 74 points only once time at home this season.
Prediction: I think this should be a very interesting game with possible fight until last quarter where home factor and Real winning mentality will prevail. Also this should be low-tempo game with many defensive work from both sides. Both teams are capable to score over 70 points but I feel that winner would not score more than 76-77 points here. And there is big chance that loser will end its game in the 65-72 pts range.
Predicted score: Real Madrid 76 - 69 Olympiacos
Pick: Under 151.5 @ 2/10 1.83 Bet365.com (recommended only as a TV-pick) New articles on this topic:
Older articles on this topic: |
Free Picks 
