By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
The home court advantage doesn’t guarantee much in Euroleague, but after the first play offs games all the teams that got it, got also the wins. In the three Wednesday encounters the guests were defeated and here’s how.
- CSKA Moscow proved on the court that it’s the favorite in the series against Caja Laboral by getting the 89-78 win. It was game decided in the first half, when the hosts had a 15 points lead (50-35) and Milos Teodosic had already a 20 ranking after just 12 minutes of action. However, it still early and Caja could react if the players of coach Tabak improve themselves drastically in defense.
- Real Madrid started the game sleepwalking and guests Maccabi Tel Aviv had a 23-14 lead after the first quarter. That was enough for Real Madrid to wake up and with a 24-4 second period order was restored by Rudy and company. After that, Maccabi couldn’t get back into the game and the final score (79-53) came without any thrills.
- In Piraeus, the game wasn’t pretty but at this point the result count and Olympiacos got the 67-62 win over Anadolu Efes behind a career night by Giorgos Printezis who had 26 points. However, the most important number of the night was the guests making just 1/19 three pointers, a miserable 5% shooting percentage that killed them. Jordan Farmar had 0/5 and Sasha Vujacic 0/3 from the 6,75 m. line.