Caja Laboral - CSKA Moscow

Caja can't find its game and form. Their offense does not work against CSKA defense most of the time and looking at their results at home this season I can expect another thriller for Vitoria fans. Honestly speaking I don't know what corrections should Ivanovic do to start scoring offense. He tried all possible variations in Moscow but nothing had worked.


CSKA in its best conditions is very hard team to beat. In last 6 games at least 5 players scored 10 points. CSKA defense works really well against Caja's offense and all they should do is just to continue playing in-style.

Caja was 5.5 pts favorite in regular season game. Now they are only 2.5 pts favs and only because of name and home court. All other signs talk for CSKA in this matchup. I still think that Caja can win this game but I don't know how they are going to make it. CSKA was too good in home games offensively and now their offensive performance should be less effective. Both teams have abilities to score in the 68-76 points range but only luck and mental decisions will decide a winner here.

Nobet for me.

Prediction: Caja L 75 - 73 CSKA Moscow

Partizan - Maccabi

This game will be played on Belgrade Arena. 23.000 supporters will help Partizan to take a lead in series. As for me Partizan looks like more organized team especially on offense where they have more options. With home crowd support they should also find defensive rhytm which was off in Game when they allowed Maccabi to score 72% from 2-pts zone and 40% from 3-pts line.

Maccabi obviuosly does not have defensive answer for A.Maric inside presence. I think that Vujosevic might include him into starting five in Game 3 to put pressure on Maccabi defense from first minutes and provide easy start for his team on offense.

Maccabi's chance is good shooting. They have a lot of problems with penetration into the zone. Their chance in these 2 games are Partizan turnovers on offense. If serbs will lose many balls Maccabi will be able to play transition basketball and score easy points. If Partizan will play careful on offense they will win this game quite comfortably.

I hold Partizan as favorite to win this game. But bookies also set them favorites so there is no clear value in backing Partizan. Over/under is hard to predict because both teams has defense but so far defense was not working well because matchup situations were solved great by coaches.

Prediction:  Partizan 81 - 74 Maccabi

Prokom - Olympiacos

I hate to be a part of the games when Olympiacos is not playing seriuosly. Both games in Greece were played in this manner and now when Oly has 2-0 lead they can do what they want. They can win by 10+ pts, they can win by 3-6 pts or they can lose and win one of 2 games left. Skipping this game.

Prediction:  Prokom 79 - 85 Olympiacos

Real Madrid - Regal Barcelona

"It is time we return to play at our level, not just players like Ricky Navarro, but the whole team. We must get our way and return to play well. The motivation there, also the concentration, and hope that success can also rise. "

One thing is for sure. Real can't score a lot of points against Barcelona defense. Barcelona was not able to score points in first two games too but mainly because their offensive players were unable to score points (sometimes from open positions). Pasqual rested his team in ACB league game which was a home too because he knows that Game 3 has top importance for his club. If they win they are almost in Final 4 and if they lose.. everything may happen.

I expected to see Barcelona a clear favorite in this game. In my head Barcelona at its best conditions should be a -5 points favorite in Madrid. Now when they are not in best from offensively they should be 2.5-3 points slight favorites. Because they still have well working defense, better players and winning mentality. Real on other side had so many up and downs this season that I would not be suprised to see them discouraging this time.

Barca to win Game 3 is my pick of the day. Let's see if that will happen.

Prediction:  Real M 68 - 76 Regal Barcelona

Pick: Barcelona to win @ 1.85 Unibet