By Lefteris Moutis/ moutis@eurohoops.net
The Top 16 round is fired up and this week we bet on the big favorites. CSKA vs Unicaja, Real vs Panathinaikos and Barcelona vs Crvena Zvezda have the upper hand to prevail.
Real Madrid is in great shape and wants to secure against Panathinaikos the first place. The Greens lost at home in the Euroleague twice only, both by Barcelona. However, they don’t play so well lately, faced three straight defeats and Real is expected to prevail easily by more than 4 points. Moreover, Real plays up tempo basketball and in the majority of its games scores more than 80 points which is the line. So, we bet over on its points.
CSKA is the absolute favorite to win the game vs Unicaja. The Spaniards don’t have motivation but in every single game they fight until the end for their pride. However, the quality difference is obvious and CSKA will probably beat Unicaja by more than 9 points.
Something similar stands also for Barcelona which travels to Belgrade to face Crvena Zvezda. The Serbians are a hard team and especially at home they fight. But Barcelona needs this victory to keep itself in the second place and will do it.
Both Maccabi and Zalgiris play hard defense and the score in their games usually is low. The Israelis want desperately the victory and they will try to make it through their defense. The line of Zalgiris‘ points is low, so we bet that both teams will not score more than 151 points.
The betting tips
Crvena Zvezda(+5,5)-Barcelona 2
@Unibet 1,89
Maccabi-Zalgiris Under 151,5 points
@Bet365 1,90
Unicaja(+8,5)-CSKA 2
@Sportingbet 1,87
Panathinaikos (+4)-Real Madrid 2
@Coral 1,91
Panathinaikos-Real Madrid Real Madrid Over 80,5 points
@William Hill 1,85