By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
With Euroleague’s Top 16 having reached a crucial point, some clubs have already been in a position of strength to qualify to the playoffs, however most of them will need to fight tooth and nail, in the remaining five matches, in order to secure their spot in the next phase.
Four games are set to take place on Thursday and four on Friday, with both Olympiacos and Panathinaikos playing crucial matches on the road. The Greens are heading to Belgrade to face Crvena Zvezda, while the Reds will fight against Brose Baskets in Germany, in a “do or die” match for Giannis Sfairopoulos’ team.
Don’t forget that you can watch live all Euroleague matches via Eurohoops Game Center.
Game of the week: Barcelona – CSKA Moscow (11/3, 8:45pm CET)
Barcelona (4-5), one week after their triumph over Olympiacos, faced a painful defeat in its match against Khimki in Moscow. Now, the Catalans need to beat CSKA Moscow in order to improve their chances to qualify. On the other hand, the Russians (7-2) have the league’s best offence and are the favourites to escape from Spain with a big victory, as this will be the 27th game between the two clubs, in their franchise history.
Worth watching: Lokomotiv Kuban – Fenerbahce (10/3, 6pm CET)
Lokomotiv Kuban welcome Fenerbahce in a match, which will determine who will claim the first place in group E. The Turks had won by six points in the first match, so the Russians will need to prevail over their opponents with 7+ points in order to climb to the top of the table.
Fenerbahce has an excellent three-point percentage and is very effective offensively, whereas Lokomotiv Kuban has the league’s best defence (they concede just 70 points in total as well as 66.3 at home) and also shoots the ball very well from the three-point range.
Thursday, March 10
Cedevita – Unicaja Malaga (7 pm CET)
Brose Baskets- Olympiacos (8 pm CET)
Laboral Kutxa – Khimki (8.45 CET)
Friday, March 11
Zalgiris Kaunas – Real Madrid (6.45pm CET)
Darussafaka – Anadolu Efes (7.30pm CET)
Crvena Zvezda – Panathinaikos (8pm CET)
Things you need to know
- Olympiacos needs seven more blocks to reach the 1000 ones in the Euroleague. The Greek team will become the fourth club to reach that milestone, after Barcelona, CSKA Moscow and Maccabi Tel-Aviv.
- Malcolm Delaney has the most playing time in the entire league, averaging 33:52 minutes per game, having been also fouled the most times as well (126).
- Anthony Randolph has scored 17+ points in the last five games, averaging 20.6 points and 66.1% in two-point shots (37/56).
- 19 players have played for Crvena Zvezda this season, while 14 different ones have been starters.
- Nick Calathes is on top of the list in steals, with 2.1 per game.
- Dimitris Diamantidis needs 17 points to tie Nicola Vujcic in the sixth place of the all-time scoring list, as the Greens’ captain has 2.427 points so far.