Partizan vs Olympiacos

David against Goliath. Cinderella story. Magic happens. Call it as you want. But this game is about big team playing against small team and on paper everything points to easy Olympiacos victory. But we already saw so many miracles from magical Dusan Vujosevic and his team that you must think twice before placing a bet on Olympiacos in this semifinal.

ROSTERS

No doubts that Olympiacos has much better team and is equiped on all position by top-class players with plenty of Euroleague experience. On some positions Olympiacos have up to 3 players available and they have huge advantage over the Partizan roster everywhere.

But if we talk about discipline on the court Partizan looks more interesting team because they already showed how well they can matchup against big teams including Olympiacos. Don't forget than Partizan won against them at home and was in game until 4th quarter in Greece.

On paper Olympiacos has a lot of options to dominate on the court but on practice it could be difficult to dictate will to Partizan on neutral court.

FORM

Both teams are in good mood these days but we can't compare Serbian championship with Greece league. But in last games Partizan showed good defensive performance and solid game in offense. Also their fantastic win in Adriatic League Final Four could be an edge factor here because they have confidence.

OFFENSE/DEFENSE

Olympiacos has 2nd best offense in the Euroleague after Barcelona according to my own rating and one of the best defenses. But defensively Olympiacos usually looks like a rock stone only in home games while away they are too lazy to demonstrate it in not important games. However, Final Four is more than important game and we can expect Olympiacos to show its power in defense.

Partizan defensively looked solid almost in every game this season especially in its second half. But offensively serbian team has 2 different faces: home and away. At home they score 0.97/posession and away only 0.81/posession. Often away from home they fail to score 70 points and it is very possible that against Olympiacos defense they would not be able to score a lot.

MENTALITY

You never should underestimate Partizan. This team has fighters mentality and they never quit playing. Do you remember how they returned back from being down by 23 points against Maccabi at Nokia arena and won the game? That is the character of this team and that is why everyone in Europe respects Vujosevic team.

On other side Olympiacos has a winners mentality and this year I can say that they are ready to win big titles. But the weak point of Olympiacos is their strange away games mentality. Sometimes they play like all-star which does not care about result and sometimes they lose games to team they must win with closed eyes. But when they are motivated they can win against Real and Caja Laboral in Spain. Today they need their best game especially defensively to get into final.

PACE

Both teams are tending to play fast basketball on offense and force opponent to have long possesions. A lot will depend how defense will work here. If both teams will find a defensive solution for each other this game should be slow. If defensive solution will be to foul on opponent than 160+ game could happen.

CONCLUSION

I agree Oly is favorite here. And I agree that if they will be at 100% they can destroy Partizan by double digits. But also I know that Olympiacos often creates troubles when play away from Greece and Partizan can do miracles. So my choice here to stay away from sides betting. Maybe live betting can be more interesting.

As for the total. I think that 156.5-157.5 pts total line is a bit too much for 2 teams which are gonna to play in defense. I see this game as 148-162 points game and 154.5 total looks more fair for me. But this is not enough for a bet.

I do believe that Partizan would not embarassed in this game but I am not mentally ready to play against Olympiacos in semifinal of Euroleague.