I don't see interesting bets in Euroleague today so I decided to take some rest. As always I will write short preview for matches but please be careful. I really don't think that today is a good day for betting.

The battle for a spot in the Quarterfinal Playoffs via Group G wages on come Wednesday when Unicaja hosts rival AXA FC Barcelona at the Martin Carpena Arena in Malaga, Spain. Unicaja, which started the Top 16 with back-to-back losses on the road, overcame CSKA Moscow at home last week as center Daniel Santiago shined with 20 points. Meanwhile Barca, which edged Unicaja 64-62 in the opener, smashed Lottomatica Roma by 29 last week to improve to 2-1 as Gianluca Basile led a well-balanced scoring effort with a season-high 19 points. Both Barcelona wins in the Top 16 have come at home. These two Spanish League rivals 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 as Marcus Haislip scored 24 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to push Unicaja to a 77-62 victory.  The next challenge is to bring that same effort on the road for a big win, which could make all the difference in this crowded group.

I don't like today's games because at least 2 of 5 games are nobet type for me (Partizan & Barcelona), while others 2 (Fenerbahce & Aris) are games where I don't know what to expect because all scenarios are possible there. So only one game is left and this is central game of the day where Maccabi hosts Real Madrid. Big game but I will try to explain my point of view. 

 

VS.

Maccabi Tel-Aviv vs. Real Madrid 

At the end of November Olympiacos already proved that they are much better team than Zalgiris when they controlled game and won by 16 points. Olympiacos was 13.5 pts favorite in that game,  today 2 months later they will meet the same opponnent but now they are only 5.5 favorites. The only seriuos reason for such Olympiacos understimation is their recent results and Macijauskas injury. By the way Olympiacos players before this game were not available for interviews and this talks a lot about their preparation for this game. Maybe they will have some surprises for Zalgiris and on of them could Macijauskas appereance in the game. As far as I know he was training with a team but felt back spasms so doctors decided to give him rest before the game with Real Madrid. Since then no new information was available from the club... So everything is possible here at least I would be suprised to see him playing today.

On other side we have Zalgiris.. I already wrote that I don't hold Zalgiris as a seriuos team. They are lucky to be here. Lucky from the work "luck". They always playing against injury troubled teams or against poor teams like Olimpija, Prokom or Virtus. They had only 2 games I respect against Tau at home and against Real in Top-16. But today I see them clear underdogs of this battle. Zukauskas is quiestionable for this game and even with him on the court it will be extremely hard to stop Tsakalidis-M.Jackson-Bouroussis trio under baskets. N'Diaye is good player but he grabs fouls very fast and against very powerful Oly centers he should appear in foul trouble very soon. Brown will be defended very hard today and as it often happens he could stay out of the game in such hot arenas like Pireus Peace and Friendship arena.