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With the basketball world cup coming to an end I think it's time to make a new general thread for the new upcoming European basketball season.

I hope we can stay away from NBA talk in this thread and focus on Europe only.



https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/09/11/6UfMz.png

This should cover, but not reduce to, Euroleague, Eurocup and domestic leagues like Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Israel, Turkey, Lithuania and more.
A lot of recent NBA talent went to Europe this summer so we can all be exited for the upcoming season.

What's you pick for the Euroleague? Monaco looks strong after adding Kemba Walker. Their back court with him and Mike James is scary.

TBH, I've got no knowledge about this Euro league but for sure there are betting odds for this league and I think this thread will be helpful for us that has little or no knowledge of what's going on in Euro basketball.

Will closely watch this thread so that I can gain knowledge on whom or where to bet.

Do most of those players we have watched on FIBA'23 will play on this tournament?

The European team's success on the recently concluded FIBA world cup sparked my interest on European competitions so this thread is very much welcome. I checked Rollbit's sportsbook and it says there are about 16 teams that would compete here. Can you confirm that? It looks like Real Madrid is the favorite to win this season with odds at 5.50

Actually the Euroleague has 18 teams.

There are always the usual suspects at the top of the favourites like Real, Barcelona, Fenerbahce but teams like Monaco, Olympiacos and Bayern Munich recently made a good impression and great player additions.

Barca and Real had some big signings this offseason so they are always a force in this competition.


Well from the European teams almost all players that are not in the NBA are playing in Europe. Many of them are playing for the strong teams represented in the Euroleague.
But the domestic leagues are also very interesting. Spain has a lot of great teams for example and is definitely the strongest domestic league in Europe. Many other leagues only have a couple of great teams. Like in Italy it's mostly Milano and Virtus Bologna competing for the championship. In France it's Monaco and Lyon, Germany Munich and Berlin ( last season was a big surprise with Ulm winning ) or in Lithuania there is mostly Zalgiris Kaunas winning with Lietuvos Rytas trying to battle them.

But in Spain you have Barca, Madrid, Valencia, Saski Baskonia and others playing at a high level.

I also like smaller leagues like the Polish league, the Czech league or even the nordic leagues like in Finland an so on.

Looking forward for the start of many leagues this month. Finally the summer break is over and the basketball season is making a comeback.

Basketball picking up steam.

The first "bigger leagues", the French LBL and the Lithuanian LKL start today, so the waiting time is over.

In Munich there is a great preseason tournament today with Bayern Munich, ALBA Berlin, Kk Crvena Zvezda and Virtus Bologna. 3 Euroleague teams with strong rosters getting ready for the new season.

Finally the summer break is over and the leagues restart action, I couldn't be more exited!

It's time to bump this topic a bit as new Euroleague season begins tomorrow. Little introdution - there is no change in list of participants as Eurocup winners decided not to take part in Euroleague. But there is one big change - Play-in tournament after regular season between 7-10th placed teams.
In opening round biggest game will be between Panathinaikos with new manager Ataman and Olympiacos. Though, just week ago Oly completely demolished PAO in Greek Super Cup final.
Barca - Efes is another big game, though, Barca now doesn't looks like a force which can fight for the title.

Damn, seems that you have very good knowledge about European basketball if you follow these leagues. From national leagues I follow our local Lithuanian LKL and then Sapnish, Turkish, German, Italian and French league. And offcourse, Euroleague, Eurocup and Vhampions league as well.
What is your favorite team if it's not secret :)?

this topic looks better than just Euroleague, because it should be more active, more topics/leagues to cover

I follow some bigger European leagues, but most attention to Euroleague and ABA league, where Partizan plays
we start tomorrow against Maccabi in Tel Aviv in Euroleague, should be an interesting match, and will put better view on our team this season, looking at players, we should fight for Top10 for sure, and aim for F4

bookmarking this topic

Thank you.
Yes covering just Euroleague is a bit boring. It's just 18 teams and only 1, max 2, games per week for each team.

While in Europe every league finally started and we have way more games to cover.

Bayern Munich, which is the HUGE favourite to win the title in Germany this year, already have their first loss in a huge upset in Oldenburg. They have 3 world champions, some solid Euroleague veterans, and for whatever reason recently acquired Serge Ibaka. I'm happy to see them lose nationally, I don't like this project. They have no history in Germany and only bought their way into the league several years back.

In France, Monaco still hasn't played Kemba Walker. Slowly rumours coming up their are some issues. Even Mike James mentioned some words about being unhappy they signed him. To be honest, another pointguard was the last thing they needed.

You mentioned Partizan, they have a strong team together this year, just as their arch rival red star. I didn't even see they initially signed Kelly Oubre, who now signed with the 76s in the NBA again.
Watching their home games is always exiting and I'm eagerly waiting for the Belgrade derby this season!!

yeah, our arch rival started well in Euroleague, easy home win against Asvel, while Partizan is on the way to lose first match against Maccabi (losing 20+ difference in fourth quarter)
but overall, both teams are looking good this season, and will be really interesting to see who will come up better in the end

Barcelona seems to be up against Efes, and Bayern that you mentioned is close to win over Alba

Yeah Partizan didn't have the start they wanted. But to be fair, it's not easy to start away and in Tel Aviv.
Bayern had a strong 3rd quarter after being down 8 at halftime, damn. I was hoping ALBA could stop them but they totally fell apart in the 3rd.
It was a solid gameday and Zalgiris with a big comeback in the forth giving them the only away win of the 5 games.

Today we will see the first big derby of the new season with Panathinaikos vs Olympiacos. Kostas Sloukas went from Olymp. to Pana this summer, which is an absolute no go. Let's see how his former team will greet him when they meet.  ;D

indeed, especially for Greek nationals, USA players can go easier from Oly to PAO and vice versa, but for Greeks that is not the case
similar in Serbia, with Partizan and Zvezda, our current captain, Punter has played for Zvezda, but for Serbs to change from one to another is a no-go (there were few, most notably Vlade Divac had Zvezda episode during NBA lock-down, being big Partizan star before that)

congrats to Zalgiris, 3-point shot-out in last quarter, and 57,9% overall, excellent

1st round of Euroleague didn't disappointed. So many great games that it was difficult to pick which one to watch because most of were played on same time. 2 overtimes and 2 very close games. Greek derby was awesome. It already looked  that Sloukas will kill his former team, but in 4th quarter he was stopped. PAO can blame themselves that they didn't won in 40 minutes. They had everything in their hands, but Sloukas made offensive foul, then there was Lessort mistake. In overtime only one team played - Olympiacos made amazing run 12:0.
Baskonia - Real and Fenerbahche - Milan were great with winner decided in final seconds.
Yesterday Barca looked much better than I expected and won against Efes quite confident. While Partizan disappointed me - they were soft and didn't remind previous season team. But it's too early to make conclusions just after 1st round.

Yeah the season started off strong.
In 3 of the 4 games we saw a 4th quarter comeback, with 2 of the 3 teams actually winning at the end.
Pana vs Olympiakos was of course the highlight of the evening.

I also just watched a highlight video of the Red star game from Thursday, their new arena is really nice and the atmosphere was super crazy.

If a NBA team would have to play with this kind of a crowd they would crumble, hahaha.

Because of war in Israel, all their clubs this week games were suspended (Euroleague, Eurocup, Champions league and FIBA Europe Cup) while next week's Maccabi game with Valencia moved from Tel Aviv to Valencia. Maccabi is already training in Cyprus.

There is no Euroleague games tomorrow, but there is friendly game in Madrid between Dallas Mavericks and former Luka Doncic team, Euroleague champions Real Madrid. It should be very interesting, I just don't know whether they will play FIBA or NBA rules.

I will correct you a bit - it's not their new arena, they used to play some big games in Stark Arena in past, but this season they will play all Euroleague games there and they're sharing this arena with Partizan. Great move because atmosphere here is insane. I really would like to see NBA team playing against them there :D.

Oh ok, my bad. I just saw a youtube video on the eurobasket channel and must have understood wrong then.
Anyway, the arena is huge, great venue.
Bayern is also building a new arena, construction will be finished so they can play there next season. It also looks really nice and is a good experience for euroleague basketball. Maybe they will get a final 4 or something to play there soon I think, totally worth it.

The Israel situation is really bad, I thought this might have an influence on their basketball teams.

And about Madrid vs Dalles, I think it's NBA rules because it's still the "NBA global games". And they play 12 minute quarters so the rest should be NBA as well. Hopefully Madrid can put up a good fight and represent Europe in a good manner.

Yeah, I read about Bayern new arena, Virtus is also planning to enter new arena next year, ASVEL planning to play most part of their games in LDCL arena with 12 000 capacity. Bigger arenas will help clubs to get more revenue from tickets and will make better image for Euroleague. Now I only can't understand how Barcelona, club with A license can play their games in arena that don't meet even minimal Euroleague requirements.
Real - Mavs game wasn't most competetive as Mavs were without Irving, Doncic played just 5 minutes and there was plenty of players with two-way contracts playing big minutes. Real made nice comeback in 4th quarter and laugh of Doncic after Campazzo 3-pointer was moment of game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRfDgzQu8gU. Meanwhile I checked other results and saw that clubs from Australia and New Zealand got destroyed by 40-60 points by NBA clubs, damn, such huge gap of level.
Real have much more important game in Euroleague less than 48 hours later against Efes in Istanbul. Another very interesting game in 2nd round will be between Olympiacos and Barcelona/

yeah, same Arena in Belgrade, where both Zvezda and Partizan play their matches
will be interesting to see who will have more fans on all matches in the end, it is an informal competition here, and making great atmosphere is also part of the game

we are visiting Asvel this round, and Zvezda is going to Zalgiris, interesting odds on both away wins, but it will tough to see that

edit: no new posts, so I will just edit this one
Partizan had an easy win over Asvel (seems that Asvel will eventually hit the Euroleague bottom, judging by start), and Zalgiris overturned Zvezda in last quarter, almost the same as Virtus in first round

What a nice bunch of games the euroleague had the last 2 days.

Who would have thought that Monaco, one of the front runners to reach the final 4, would get pounded by Virtus yesterday. Losing by 24 at home against a team that is not really on anybody's radar is crazy.
I also expected Crvena zvezda to win in Kaunas, even though they were a slight underdog but a big last quarter saw Kaunas erasing a 9 point deficit and take the home win.
Barca winning at Olympiacos was also a small surprise I must say.

Only 2 weeks in and the league already gave us some memorable games, that's why we love European basketball!!

Yeah, it was interesting round. Maybe it's not that huge upset that Monaco lost, bbut how they looked yesterday, it's shameful. Barca is pleasant surprise for me so far. They got weaker on paer compared with previous season, they opponents in opening rounds were so difficult but they started with 2 wins. Didn't watched whole game, but 4th quarter - Barca showed elite defense there.
Valencia win against Fenerbahche also can be called as surprise and they also opened season with 2 wins, though, they played both games at home.

they will be tested tonight
home opener for Partizan, and bookies set as a favorites against Barcelona, not a case often

expect a full Arena, but not fully certian that we will win this one, team is still getting together, although it looked really good in last two matches against Asvel and Cibona in ABA league

Real is playing Zalgiris and Fener against PAO

It will be late here in Japan but I won't miss Partizan vs Barcelona.
Will be a packed house with intimidating atmosphere for the Barca players.
Hopefully Belgrade will see a magic night and a home win . They are slight favorite in this one and it's really hard to pick a winner there.
But if I had to bet then it would definitely be Partizan!!

home opener pressure was too much for Partizan tonight
Barcelona got up in just before halftime, and finished it without giving Partizan too much to hope for

atmosphere in Arena was something special, player announcements on high-level, in complete black and white
and crowd above expectations, it was just a win that was missing, but it will be better

Real Madrid is finishing Zalgiris as of now, 15+ in last quarter

Seems like it.
Sometimes even the best atmosphere can be pressure for yourself.
It surprised me that Belgrade took so few shots from 3 in this game. They only took 12 (made 4) while Barca too 20 more shots and made 13.
In every other aspect the game was quite even, Barce just made more of their opportunities I guess.

Even though the German core of Bayern didn't play well they managed to get their first away win this season afte a comeback and a huge 19:6 4th quarter. They went from 52:62 to 76:68 in the last 11 minutes of the game, in an away game that's quite impressive!
Other than this small surprise there wasn't much more yesterday. I also followed Champions league and Eurocup which had some nice games and surprises. European basketball is in full swing now.  ;D

Monaco bounced back after huge loss last week and won against Crvena Zvezda away. We saw debut of Kemba Walker, but he haven't done anything significant and scored 2 points. There was lot of spectators in Stark arena too, but atmosphere comparing with yesterday's Partizan game was just meh. Valencia got already 3rd win after beating Maccabi at home. But I still wouldn't get hyped on their results, they got all 3 wins at home and Maccabi after what's happening in Israel isn't in great situation.
Didn't saw Milan - Olympiacos game, how the hell Milan managed to let Oly to score just 53 points? Wow. Real Zalgiris was game of different level teams. Zalgiris was without one of key players Butkevicius, with him I think it would be different game. Zalgiris need to find replacement for Brazdeikis ASAP. They have lot of money after Olympiacos paid for transfer, but it's difficult to find high level player in market right now.
Double week will continue tomorrow and most interesting game on Thursday will be Olympiacos - Partizan.

Monaco really surprised me as well.

To be honest yesterday I focussed on eurocup, champions league and europe league since there were some interesting games.
Lot of surprises and high odds on away teams, also with big comebacks in the forth and so on.

I had a small parley going with also euroleague woman, Fenerbahce playing in Zaragoza. The odds were 1.01 on Fener and i used it as a filler, with 3:30min to go they were down 6 and it was the last game in the parley, I was cursing, haha.
But in the end the managed to squeeze out a win, I will never use a filler again.  ;D My poor heart.

Eurocup and euroleague of woman also had some nice surprises and big odds, crazy day.

Olympiacos - Partizan, what a game it was. It should be painful for Partizan to lose when they had double digits lead in 3rd quarter and still had lead most part of 4th quarter. Nunally sent game to overtime with buzzer beater, but in OT Oly were a bit better. Walkup was one of key players showing elite defense. And of course, Larentzakis
ASVEL had very solid 1st half against Fenerbache, but upset didn't happened, they lost second half 31:59 and stays in bottom of Euroleague. I think it was last game for T.J. Parker as ASVEL coach.
Very solid Zalgiris win against Baskonia, they had quite big lead most part of game.

Damn, women Euroleague and Eurocup is a bit too much for me, simply don't have time for it, only try follow when club from my country is playing. While Champions league and Eurocup, follow it actively, unfortunately my club in BCL lost opening game yesterday.

nice to hear this as a comment


not a start we expected but it is a long season, better to win in March/April and losing now than vice versa
nevertheless, not a nice feeling to lose game after having decent advantage, but congrats to Olympiakos

I agree its better that we win later on but didnt expect that we just drop like that a winning game. Before game we didnt expect we were gonna win but after that third quarter i honestly saw a win. Refs killed us with some decisions and i expected from Punter a lot more,so far a bad season for him.

Yesterday I took 2 risky bets and 1 of them worked out.

Usually when there is a double game day in Euroleague the participating teams kind of struggle or take it slow the following weekend in their domestic league.
That's what happened last night in the ABA league with Partizan and Red star.
Red star managed to win the game at FMP Beograd but despite being a 14 point favourite FMP even had a 1 point lead in the 4th before at the end losing by 11, still they covered. I bet FMP moneyline small (which I lost and handicap +14,5 which won.

My prediction was even better for Partizan, they have been down the entire game at Mega Basket, even by as much as 20 points, in the end losing only by 2.
I got the +12,5 handicap for FMP and the money line with 6,8 as well, happy times.

Post double Euroleague game day is where you can make good money guys.

Edit: Just saw a video that Dusko Ivanovic at Red star has been fired. Man the club is on fire already.

For me it's strange decision to sack coach just after few games, especially when team doesn't looks that bad. But I read that Ivanovic lost locker room. He will be replaced Ioannis Sfairopoulos, what is good choice IMO.
Another team that already changed coach is ASVEL. Tony Parker sacked his brother T.J. and I think it had to be done long time ago. They wanted to sign Gordy Herbert who won recent World Cup, but German Federation didn't let him to take this job. So, they appointed The Atomic Fly Gianmarco Pozzecco. Not sure that he will improve ASVEL results, but watching their games will be more interesting.
Already can't wait for Thursday when we will have Belgrade derby between Partizan and Crvena Zvezda and El Clasico in Madrid later. It's good that it will be possible to watch both matches in full without jumping through channels as Euroleague often likes to make best games on same time.

---

Just watched Eurocup game between Wolves and Besiktas and saw one of craziest comebacks recently. With 45 seconds remaining Beskitas had 7 points lead and they managed to waste it. Wow!

I watched that as well.
It was even more crazy since it was 30sec to go up 7 points plus Besiktas HAD THE BALL, and then losing. How is that even possible, haha.
Actually I made a small bet on the Wolfes since the odds were so good but in the middle of the 3rd when they somehow fell apart and threw away the nice lead they had all game I cashed out with a small loss.

Needless to say I wasn't so happy seeing them getting the miracle win at the end, haha.

it was a worst 25 minutes that Partizan had played lately, and we eventually equalize minute before the end, but could not win it (end didn't deserved it as well)
Dusko Ivanovic lost contact with players (mostly Teodosic), and that costed him position, start in Euroleague is below expectations as well

derby on Thursday is a must win for Partizan, playing with our crowd (both teams play in the same hall, but no away visitors), but with three loses in a row, it is hard to be very optimistic before it

Belgrade derby was fantastic. How powerful Partizan started game, but then Crvena Azvezda made response and they had control of game in 3rd quarter, having double digit lead. Zvezda changed their coach, but one thing doesn't changes - they play awful in 4th quarters. Aleksa Avramovic - what a performance in 4th quarter, he is main reason why Partizan won. While in other side, Teodosic, most experienced player missingfree throws, making brick shots...
El Clasico was good too. Real didn't played well, made just 2 3-pointers from 22, but they controlled game until Barca made comeback. Barca even had chance to send game to OT, but Satoransky missed free throws. And that call was questionable because it didn't looked like was trying to make attempt from half court and he was just looking for a foul. So, now Real is only undefeated team.
Monaco 107-79 Maccabi, wtf was that? Monaco was favorite, but didn't saw such huge result coming. Olympiacos also had unexpected easy game against Efes.

As Efes' stadium is very close to my home I watched the most of their home matches in the Euroleague at the stadium. They are really having problems at inside defending. They absolutely need to transfer a center. Otherwise this team can't make it to final four and not even play-offs.

In the El-Clasico I think the referees made a wrong decision on the foul given in favour of Barca in the last second. Fortunately Satoransky missed the free-throw and justice has been served.

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/10/26/Trj3N.md.png (https://talkimg.com/image/Trj3N)

So happy with final result in the belgrade derby. My team won barely in the end. We started the game so hot with 15 points adv and dropped it all then went 13 points behind and won the match in the very end with some incredible shots from Aleksa Avramovic. Not saying this because its my home team but this atmosfere is out of this world,nobody is even close.

Oh wow, that's cool. I envy you! I have actually never seen an Euroleague game in person in the arena, just a lot of game on my computer.  ;D
I have seen NBA, NCAA, world cup, domestic leagues in German, France, China, Japan, Philippines and so on, but Euroleague sure is missing. I have to do that at some point.

Yesterday's comeback by Crvena Zvezda was special. I was thinking about betting on micro odds when Partizan was up 11 with something over 4min to go, thank god I didn't do it.
Seems like this season anything is possible as we have already seen plenty of 4th quarter comeback in such a few games played so far.

both matches had similar turnarounds

Barca started great, as Partizan, than Real and Zvezda took their charge in the middle (2nd and 3rd quarter), and then Barca and Partizan were back for fourth quarter
it was just that Barca didn't win

Aleksa 3-pointer was something special, and he is proving his class match to match
atmosphere was above expectations

Today we have 2 big games in local leagues. Panathinaikos - Olympiacos and another Belgrade derby in less than week - Partizan - Crvena Zvezda at Stark Arena. My money is on Partizan again, while it seems that bookmakers don't have much faith in PAO, odds for Oly is such low.
Seems that another change of coach in Euroleague is inevitable. I watched a bit how Baskonia had no chance against Andorra yesterday and chair of Penarroya is very hot. At first it looked more like joke, but there is serious talks Dusko Ivanovic would replace him. It would be already 4th when he manage Baskonia and I can't remember anything similar.
EDIT Dusko to Baskonia is official now. https://twitter.com/BasketNews_com/status/1719024134414282772

Winter time in Europe means the games will now start even later for me here in Japan.
But I want to watch a bit of the 2nd Belgrade clash in within 1 week so I will stay up a bit longer. 4am is still exhausting.

3 coaches already gone after so view game days into the season really is surprising. But when you can't deliver results it seem like this can go fast these days.
I'm not surprised Dusko found a new home that fast though.

we have won it again
it was a different match dough, decided on 2nd quarter, and pretty much without chances for Zvezda in second half

good to see two wins over arch rival in few days, hopefully it will mark better form in Euroleague in November, tough away match against Baskonia on Friday is incoming

Fener vs Olympiakos is probably best match this round

Sure was a decent wir for Partizan.
They somehow bodged the 1st quarter but in the 2nd they finally played like they were supposed to be.
After they were up 19 Red star made a big run and closed it to as many as 6 points, I was already a bit worried because before the match I made a decent bet on Partizan this time.

But in the end it was smooth sailing, always leading between 7-10 points. Big derby win.

Surprisingly Olympiacos lost at home to Pana, I still have to watch the highlights of that game. I could imagine Olympiacos fans must have been pretty upset at the end!

Final result of Barcelona - Panathinaikos doesn't resembles game at all. It already looked that Barca will win game by 30 points maybe, but PAO managed to reduce gap in 4th quarter when there was no questions about game winner. PAO so far looks way below expectations, well, interesting how signing Kendrick Nunn will improve team.
Wow, what a game between Baskoia and Partizan. 4th Dusko return to Baskonia is successful. Partizan almost got killed by Andjusic two mistakes and Leday travelling, but Nunally 2+1 left them chance. But Baskonia had last attack and Moneke scored 2 free throws. If commenator was right, it means that Partizan haven't won at Fernando Buesa for 22 years, what is incredible.
Didn't watched Virtus - Efes, but Efes results looks disappointing. Meanwhile who could have thought that Virtus will have 5:1?
LOL, how Zalgiris lost to ASVEL at home, having control of game for most of time. And then 4th quarter happens when they score only 8 points. But no, they aren't looking for Brazdeikis replacement, despite having more than enough money. Already can't wait for Sunday and Lithuanian Classic between Rytas and Zalgiris. Return of Rytas to ASG arena after 1.5 years break (though it's not our real home), all tickets sold and I think that my team has good chance to beat Zalgiris

Just dissapointed at Partizan they had a game in their hand in last seconds and that stupid foul caused us to win the game. 2 wins and 5 losses things aint looking good for us at all. Hopefully Obradovic has something in his pocket to turn this around. We need a center fast our roster is weak

Anadolu Efes are playing really horrible. The trust rate in the new coach Erdem Can has started to gradually decrease among the supporters. Especially the big defeat they got against Galatasaray in the Turkish league exposed the current condition of the team. Today Anadolu Efes left the away match against Bologna with a loss as well which I think they needed to win. I'm going to watch the Anadolu Efes-Zalgiris match on November 9 at the stadium. I would try to share some photos from there. :)

Ps: The price of the basketball match tickets is really very cheap in Turkey. You can buy a ticket for Euroleague matches for around 4 euros.

Yeah Partizan really can't get a streak together.
Was thinking about making a small bet on them, as I did on the 2 games against red star, but I was too tired so I let this game go. Against a struggling Baskonia with a big losing streak I saw them having a good chance, even being the underdog. Well I was wrong.
Just watched the highlights and they really had all the chances to win but blew it at the end.
After a nice 3rd quarter they threw it away again.

Zalgiris the day before was also a real downer, blowing a big lead in the 4th against the worst team in the competition.  :'(

Partizan didn't succeed to win in Baskonia, it was a thriller, and we can't connect some Euroleague wins this season
hope it will be better in following rounds
nevertheless, would not say that we played bad, just not consistent


cheaper than in Serbia, although for Partizan it is hard to find Euroleague tickets

I'm not big fan of fast decisions to sack coach without giving him much time. Not sure about Can, is it he is the main problem, just haven't saw enough Efes games to judge

Wow, 4 euros, here in Lithuania you only can get to 2nd division games for 4 euros. Though, I can't complain that tickets is very expensive here, you can go to Lithuania league games for 8-12 euros, similar prices to Eurocup or Champions league. But Euroleague is different thing. There is some tickets for 15 euros, but even in 2nd floor ticetk costs 30-40 euros and most of games issold out almost 2 months in front.

Wow, 4euro for a euroleague tickets, even when the tickets are very far up, is such a bargain. I remember like 15 years ago in German league, for the worst tickets in the gym at a small team the minimum price was already around 10euro.

Here in Japan t's also very expensive to see the basketball league live.

In Kyoto there are games which fall under the "C category" ( against weak teams and mid week ) where you can go for as little as 1000yen ( 7$ ) but the seats are very bad. For a normal seat ( not very good seat ) on the weekend you would pay like 20-30$, which is really a lot for such a shitty league, haha.

As there is an economic crisis that has been continuing in Turkey for a long time the ticket price of sports matches except football started to be really very cheap. Still Fenerbahçe's tickets are a little more expensive (approximately 10 euros) than Anadolu Efes. Me and my friends are going to take our places at the stadium for the Zalgiris match on Thursday. I hope that it becomes an enjoyable match which Anadolu Efes win.

https://i.ibb.co/qR92R0L/IMG-8093.jpg (https://ibb.co/zSbtS8W)

Alba Berlin ended their bad run two weeks ago with a win over Milano, but last week they suffered their 5th defeat in their 6th game against Valencia. They are better in the league and they are able to show their offensive efficiency on the court, but it's difficult for them in the Euroleague as they can't replace the players who left their roster at the beginning of the season with players of the same level. Panathinaikos is one of the teams that is on the rise under Ergin Ataman. Especially last week's league victory over Olimpiakos boosted their morale, but they escaped a heavy defeat against Barcelona with a good last quarter, but still left the gym as the defeated team. Without both Sloukas and Papapetrou, it is normal for them to struggle in this tough away game. Now they have added Nunn, who is a transfer target for many teams in Europe, and they are a bit stronger in the short rotation. I expect Sloukas and the newcomer Nunn to play in this game. I think Pana will win against Alba Berlin.

Today we have Greek teams Olympiakos playing Baskonia and tomorrow Panathinaikos playing ALBA Berlin.
Since I'm Greek I know from heard that both these Greek teams have had good performance on the European level in the past.

Moreover Olympiakos has had a better performance in the last few games played and they're also playing at home:
https://i.ibb.co/MppjypT/image.png
It makes sense that the odds currently heavily favor Olympiakos because they're also playing at home.
These odds don't look bad at all:
https://i.ibb.co/1THbSBR/image.png

Panathinaikos is having a clean sweep on their national league which is probably what favors them to win as much. But  nevertheless Germany is a more competitive league so it's not a certain result by any means.

Fenerbahce is visiting in Belgrade tonight, and it is a jubilee for our coach, that is former Fener coach, Obradovic ZOC
500 Euroleague games is really a lot, and he will coach his 500 tonight

regarding odds, not sure why is Partizan quite a favored by bookies, but odds are @1.5, and Fener @2.8 is worth a try with handicap

one more Euroleague match in Belgrade tonight, Maccabi is playing their first against Bayern, but it will without audience


for Partizan - Fenerbahce Euroleague match, lowest priced tickets are 22 EUR, and standard seats tickets are 50 and 65 EUR

Should be an easy task for both teams normally.
Baskonia is struggling hard, even after the change of coaches they lost yet another match in the ACB at home.
With ALBA, hmm you never know. They are a weird team in the Euroleague. Sometimes they get blown out, sometimes they stick around and play well until collapsing in the last quarter.
But sometimes they are good for a big surprise, it's always a gamble with them.  ;D

Partizan vs Fener is definitely the game to watch today, not only because the electric atmosphere we can expect.

Today I'm actually watching woman's basketball, there is the 1st qualifier window for the next Eurobasket 2025. Germany will finally play with the 2 Sabally sisters that both play in the WNBA. They don't have to qualify though since Germany is one of the hosts. They just participate to practice for the Olympic qualifier beginning of next year.

Yeah, I also don't expect that both Greek teams will struggle much. While Partizan favoured by bookmakers, I think it's all about home factor, it should be interesting game. Efes - Zalgiris, I predict Efes win here. Zalgiris started season well, but so far they're not looking like playoff contenders.
Olimpia - Milano is most interesting game for me today and I think abouttaking Valencia win @3.25. So far Milan is leaving such sad impression, with such squad they should be in Top 8, but they're in the bottom again. If it would be other coach, not Messina, I think that his seat would be very hot now.
Real is plauing with Virtus which so far have surprising 5:1 result, but today I don't see any chance for them, predict Real win about 20 points.

---

I will watch womens basketball too. My country Lithuania will play with Azerbaijan, I think it's first time ever when Azerbaijan women is playing in qualifiers. And not often you can see bookmakers giving such lines:
https://talkimg.com/images/2023/11/09/tgjxJ.png
But I doubt that difference will be such big, from what I remember for Lithuania women games against such opponents usually isn't that easy and we don't have few important players this time.

Damn, I didn't expect Olympiacos to be losing today at all!
https://i.ibb.co/yVqKfKf/image.png

That second quarter Olympiacos really underperformed and lost it against Baskonia. Amazing how they were able to tople the result like that, albeit in a narrow finish in the end.
That surely was not the result people expected given Baskonia's season so far but surely they turned the tables good. Big congrats on this well deserved win. Sadly it's surely going to make qualification chances a little harder for Olympiacos.

https://i.postimg.cc/wBkGjDYX/seat.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

This was the place I watched the Anadolu Efes - Zalgiris match today. The ticket for the seat was worth 110 Turkish Liras (which is only 3.60 euros). Anadolu Efes increased the gap to 18 points thanks to their effective game in the 2nd and 3rd quarters. After that Zalgiris started to recover and and carried the match to overtime. But Anadolu Efes still won after overtime.

However Anadolu Efes don't look credible to me at all this season. I have bought my ticket for the Partizan match on November 24 already now. But I think that Obradovic's team is luckier there.

What a shooting match for Fenerbahce and they were able to lose in the end of the match against Partizan. The atmosfere had a big effect on Fenerbahce and i think that is why they couldnt hold the presure. What a win for Partizan at home and this could be a start of a winning streak.

That was massive 2nd quarter from Baskonia - 9-30. Didn't expected this from Baskonia, but seems that Dusko return helped them, at least in short term.

Seems it was night of comebacks, Zalgiris returned from -18 and sent game to overtime, Olympiacos also had -18, but then was was close from win, Partizan had -15, but managed to win game. Congrats with Efes win. While Zalgiris had similar problems as they have all season long and if they won't sign any player soon, there is no chance to reach playoffs for them.
Atmosphere at Stark arena was amazing again and maybe one of main reasons why Partizan won today. I tried to switch to game in other Belgrade arena where Maccabi and Bayern played without spectators and it was hard to watch, instantly got flashbacks to Covid times.
And my prediction about Valencia didn't aged well, they got completely sweeped by Milano :D.

the moment Kaminsky scored for a lead just before the end (from 79:82 to 81:82) was loudest moment in Arena this season
and what assists for last minute, first Kaminsky, then Smailagic completely alone to dunk it in last minute

we let Fener 56 points in first half, and only 28 in second half, let's get some away win as well

and yeah, a lot of overturns last night, it was just Real and Milano that didn't slip anything

Sure was another nice game with crazy atmosphere. Love thos game goig up and down with many lead changes and runs.
This season we have seen big comebacks in the 4th quarter and or in the 2nd half almost every gameday, it's crazy to watch and you can actually never be sure these days.

Especially Partizan is often in these games for some reason.  ;D


Man these seats are a sweat deal. You are still quite close for this bargain of a price, lucky you. Also lucky you that Efes deliver a crazy game with a hot comeback by Zalgiris but the win for Efes in OT, must have been exiting to watch I guess.

Olympiacos seemed to be wiped off the court in the 2nd period and the 2nd period determined the overall result of the game. Even though Olympiacos dominated the second half and the last period, they suffered a last second shock. Baskonia's surprise fightback gave them the victory. Olympiacos might be missing Sloukas and Vezenkov. Because they are nothing without them. With this result, Olympiacos lost for the fourth time in its seventh game in the league. Baskonia, on the other hand, with this victory, will play the next game against Barcelona with full concentration and they can surprise again.

interesting night, especially match between Barca and Zvezda
it was a close in the end, but two technical fouls for Zvezda in last 90 seconds sealed it on Barca side
nervous or something else, but a lot of mistakes in last minutes on both sides

Panathinaikos won in Berlin, while Lyon was close, but lose French derby

I'm really feeling myself lucky for being able to watch Euroleague matches live. Besides the limited number of Zalgiris supporters also enlivened the match. :)


Anadolu Efes absolutely need to make a center transfer. Otherwise even though they have star players such as Larkin, Clyburn it isn't easy for them to make it to play-offs at all this season.  :'(

Crvena Zvezda had a few chances before that to make a lead and Napier just wasted those chances,after that tehnical fouls kicked in and they were nervous. Teodosic also made a huge mistake in the end and that was the last blow for them. They wanted a win but didnt get because they were to nervous.

Well, that's the same old problem, nerves at the end.

Another strange game was the French derby in my eyes. 4 totally different quarters, it's insane. I don't know how this can happen for ASVEL for example, 1st guarter: +9 , 2nd: -13 3rd: +8 and 4th: -14 . How and why is a good question. Almost feels like the outcome is dictated by sportsbooks and Vegas, haha.

haha, maybe it is :)

last night in ABA league Partizan had bad first half time again, against Igokea, it was a 52:74 at one moment, 57:76 before last quarter
but Partizan reached 89:89 just before the end, and when it looked that it will another win in last moments, Igokea scored within 2 seconds from the end, and won the match

it is second close lose in ABA league, could be important in 1st place fight

These are very strange similarities to the game some weeks ago at Mega Basket in the ABA.
In this game they were also down 20 in the 3rd quarter, then came back to tie it seconds before the end but Mega scored 1 more time and won the game. Basically the same match, just different host team.

Very weird, especially considering Partizan is sponsored by the biggest gambling company in south eastern Europe with Mozzart bet.
Not making accusations here but these game histories, paired with this sponsorship sure looks a bit suspicious.

We have double week in Euroleague and plenty interesting games today. One already ended - Efes won against Monaco away after leading almost whole game. It's a bit unexpected, considering that Monaco won 5 games in a row before that.
In other game Olympiacos have double digit lead vs Maccabi and for me it was strange that Maccabi were favorites here, so, I took Oly win. There is also Vaelncia - Real and Virtus - Milano in play and it's close games and Crvena Zvezda is leading by 11 vs Fenerbahche.

---

Meanwhie in Eurocup we had another crazy comeback. Lietkabelis was down by 11 vs Turk Telekom with 1:37 remaining and then they made 17:0 run in last minute and overtime. Not often you can see team failing to score in whole overtime. There is extra spice in this game. Current Lietkabelis coach Nenad Canak was sacked by Turk Telekom in begining of season, so, he returned to his second home Panevezys where he spent almost 5 years before that. So, this win should be very sweet for coach Canak:
https://talkimg.com/images/2023/11/14/zTcdc.jpeg
https://twitter.com/BasketNews_com/status/1724505495837323699/photo/1

Oh wow.
Actually I had the Lietkabelis game on the radar for a small bet but I went to bed early so I missed it. This would have given me a heart attack, hahaha. Or I would have cashed out with a big loss.

11 points in 110 seconds is just crazy. And then not scoring in the extra 5 min is just ridiculous as well!
Lietkabelis didn't even have to foul to stop the clock, TT just missed everything + one offensive foul. And Gediminas Orelik just went beat mode with back to back to back 3s, just wow.

This show you the game is never over, especially if you playing away.

Also, interesting and close games in the Euroleague so far, not one win higher than 7 points.

Probably nobody didn't saw Baskonia destroying Barcelona by 23 points. At one moment difference reached even 30 points. Howard, Miller-McIntyre and Moneke was on fire. As much as it looked strange decision to appoint Dusko as Baskonia coach for 4th time, so far it's working so well.
Panathinaikos - Zalgiris, such low quality game. How Zalgiris with 23 turnovers managed to stay in the game is mystery for me. It was already 4th loss in a row for them and things doesn't looks good for Zalgiris.
Bayern - Partizan. It looks that was first Bayern win vs Partizan. And it was without Obst, Bonga and Lucic, while Partizan was without Punter. Bayern looked better in the end, while Parrizan missed some good 3-pointers.

Baskonia after they got a new coach are dominating in the euroleague. To destroy a team like Barcelona with 20+ points is just insane,they are on a really big run. Partizans defence is just terrible, Bayern Munich had a few good players injured and they beated Partizan. Too many offensive rebounds for Bayern Munich decided the match.

Truly these days everything is possible in euroleague so it seems.
In Eurocup there were also plenty of away win surprises, especially the Hamburg win @ Cedevita. Hamburg gets pounded almost every game, and now winning away as a 10 point dog is quite surprising.

Seems like the London Lions also mean business, winning @ Besiktas to have a 5:2 record this year so far.
They are in talks to get a euroleague license for whatever reason ( money of course , London is a good name ) and playing well in the 2nd highest European competition is of course a good advertisement. Still they need to improve their team with much better players to actually compete in euroleague some day. The British league is no standard yet, no competition.

Baskonia is on the run, they are playing good basketball, will have to wait and see how long it is going to last
Partizan is getting 80+ points regularly, and 90+ occasionally, defense had to be tightened, there is still plenty of time, but expected more up to this point

another round today, Fenerbahce has another game in Belgrade against Maccabi, after Zvezda crushed them, and Zvezda is flying to Greece to face Olympiakos

Another round of Euroleague starts today with 5 games on the schedule. As I understand, ASVEL is playing their first Euroleague game at their new arena. And match with Bayern is 50/50 I think, difficult to predict something there. Barcelona is going to Belgrade to play with Maccabi and I put bet on Barca win. I hope that Maccabi will be able to return to Israel this season because playing home games in neutral location behind closed doors doesn't help them.
PAO is playing with Valencia and it's difficult to expect upset there - Valencia started season so well, but now they're struggling, won just 1 from last 6 games in Euroleague and ACB. And last game today is Real - Alba, don't know what should happen that Alba would win this one :D.
As usual in Euroleague, all games starts at almost same time and I hate it. Because you can watch just one in full. Or you can jump between channels, but in this way you miss important parts of game.

they should look into schedule, especially on these days when there is no football, or other blockbuster sports to spoil basketball nights

Maccabi and Barca are showing offensive basketball so far, it is 100+ points in first half, and score is equal
"home" team has 70% shot for 2-points, which is kind a great score, bit worse for three pointers, but I expect it to be tough till the end, and could go on each side

Real and Panathinaikos have easier nights at home, Lyon Asvel is up currently, and Fenerbahce is trying their luck in Italy

Lyon showing power at the new arena and is going for the first win at the new home the court. Barcelona struggling with Maccabi currently but they are tied so far.  I think Barcelona has a perfect chance to win the match . Maccabi playing in Serbia so its a netural court but so far are even

I'm going to take my place at the stadium for the Anadolu Efes-Partizan match tomorrow. As a Fenerbahçe fan Obradovic is a legend for me. It feels really strange to be across him. Besides in the match tomorrow Anadolu Efes' coach is going to be Erdem Can who was Obradovic's assistant at Fenerbahçe. I expect a high-scoring match and a match that Efes will win. I hope that we can win. :)

Did anybody see the Asvel Lyon vs Bayern Munich game?

This was a crazy nail biter! Double overtime and almost a 3rd one but a strange call gave Bayern 2 free throws from which they made one.
I really don't understand why. Lyon made an offensive foul with like 2 sec to go and for this Bayern got 2 fts. Am I missing something here?? Since when can you shoot free throws after and offensive foul???
They must have made some different (strange) call but there really is no explanation.

I hope you can't win, because I hope Partizan can win tonight, although it will be hard without Punter and Avramovic
it will be a high scoring match, that should not be a question

Barca pulling a win over Maccabi in a really intense and tough match last night


didn't watch it, but saw that it was really close with two overtimes
probably Asvel in bonus with fouls, or technical foult

edit: took it to Twitter to see what happened, and it was not offensive foul, since it was after the shoot, they called for a simple foul, and Bayern got 2 free throws, strange rule

Didn't watched this game, but saw video of decisivw moments. Yeah, it was off offensive foul after shot was made. IMO, there is nothing strange about this rule - it's moment when nobody controls ball, so, it can't be offensive foul. But it looks that Pozzecco was made at referees after game.
Watching Efes - Partizan now, so far it's equal game. Later today Baskonia - Monaco should be great match to watch. For me it's a bit strange that bookmakers are giving little advantage to Monaco, considering that Baskonia playing at home and how great they're looking under Dusko.

https://i.ibb.co/6bmrFtm/Match.png (https://imgbb.com/)

Anadolu Efes finished the first half ahead. It is really very enjoyable to bet on the match you are watching live.  :)  There have been plenty of points in the match just as I expected. The sound of the limited number of supporters came from Serbia is also being heard from time to time.

https://i.ibb.co/SmkRftW/won.png (https://ibb.co/gW0z4SH)

congrats on winning a bet for the first half
and for winning the match in the end

Partizan had some run in third quarter, but lost it all in fourth, 100 points from Efes does speak a lot about defense, but also Partizan form, we are lining loses in both Euroleague and ABA league away matches
hopefully it will improve on time, to start connecting dots, and improve position

Self destruct by Partizan in the last quarter gaved you the win. Really what Jaramaz did was just terrible and he destroyed us.  Anadolu didnt allow Partizan fans to buy tickets and thats why there were limited number of Partizan fans. Partizan losses again a close game and i dont know how many times this will happen.

Majority of Euroleague teams are acting like Anadolu Efes unfortunately. Even though there were limited number of Serbian supporters their sound was really higher than Anadolu Efes supporters from time to time. I bet a little more on Anadolu Efes just before the last quarter and in the middle of the 3rd quarter. It is really very enjoyable to bet on matches you watch at the stadium. :D

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/11/24/FlqI3.png (https://talkimg.com/image/FlqI3)

Plenty of interesting Euroleague games starting soon. Fenerbahche at home is facing still undefeated Real. I have feeling that they're capable to defeat Real, maybe it's worth to put small stake on Fener, 3.20 odds looks attractive. Then there is game between Monaco nad Olympiacos, for me it's 50/50 game completely.
Then there is Olimpia - Zalgiris. Milan had poor start,but now they're getting pace, while Zalgiris struggling a lot recently. Partizan - Panathinaikos at Stark Arena sounds nice, I put some money on Partizan. I read that Punter and Avramovic might be available for this game, what is great news for Partizan. Offcourse, if Punter will play, it's not worth to expect something amazing from him, but in longer period it's big game changer for Partizan who can change team's face.

we are winning lost matches, and losing those where we are leading into last quarter
another thriller, and win in overtime, hopefully your bet included overtime result, not just regular time

odds on a Partizan win where around 10 when Panathinaikos returned 3-pointer for 71:78, but I didn't want to jinx my team, although I thought we will bouncw back
and it lasted for a short interval, on 73:78 odds were already down

Yeah, fortunately Sportsbet have overtime included, so, I won my bet. Partizan showed elite defense in last minutes when they made a comeback from double digit difference. Punter played after injury, but despite it he was one of crucial player in key moments.
Fenerbahche - Real was another great game and my feelings that Real may get first defeat was right. Fener was down by 14 in 4th quarter and then comeback happened. And last attack how they forced Campazzo to make turnover and then Madar game-winner. It really didn't looked like regular season game, more like decisive playoff game.
And Milano - Zalgiris, didn't expected win from Zalgiris when they lookedso poor recently. But I have no words about Olimpia, with such roster how they can play so terrible. I said it already, if it wouldn't be Messina, other coach already would be sacked.
After Round 11 it's just 1 win between 5th and 14th place.

defense was great even on last 3-pointer that Panathinaikos scored in regular time
but overall, important win

Baskonia is back to winning, after win over Valencia last night, and Crvena Zvezda won over Efes, it is really interesting in the middle, from 6-5 to 5-6 half a league, fight for top10 will be intense, and top6 should be a goal

We have double-round week in Euroleague which starts today. And plenty of interesting games like repeat of last season final between Olympiacos and Real. Ergin Ataman returns to Istanbul where he will face his former team Anadolou Efes for the first time. Efes aren't playing how they're supposed to play, so, PAO is significant favorite here. Partizan - Monaco sounds very interesting too, I would give 60/40 to Partizan just because of home factor.
I said few times that other coach with such results would be sacked already, but no, Messina got extended contract with Milan to 2026, what a joke.
And great news from Virtus - Achille Polonara returned to court after undergoing chemotherapy for testicular cancer. He already played Italian league game last weekend:
https://basketnews.com/news-198332-achille-polonara-returns-to-basketball-court-after-overcoming-cancer.html

another overtime win at home for Partizan
it was amazing how Monaco scored two 3-pointers in last 20 seconds, but we took them over in the overtime
could not been harder than this, but we are now at equal 6-6 score, which is good

Real won in Athens, and they are really impressive this season, can't say that I didn't expect better fight from Olympiakos
Zalgiris lost important match in Berlin (lost matches against Alba could left you in lower part in the end), and Bayern took over Olimpia Milano

Valencia and Zvezda are playing today, and Valencia has five loses in a row after good start

Partizan really likes those close games.
Another strange game yesterday was Anadolu Efes vs Pana. Pre game you can get odds around 3.5 for a home win in this game, apparently connected to some missing players for Efes. And in the end Efes won while leading a lot of the game.

Euroleague is writing strange stories.

Bayern Munich slowly is coming together as a team as well and producing some good wins over the past weeks, at least 1 German team that doesn't totally suck this year.  ;D

Partizan - Monaco was amazing game, but some referee decisions were questionable, like when they didn't called 8 seconds volation for Partizan in overtime.
All games yesterday were so close. Though, Real were leading most part of game against Oly and got deserved win.
Zalgiris is pathetic - leading for 39 minutes against worst team in Euroleague which don't have half of players and you still lose it. Ulanovas - what a captain, he basically drowned Zalgiris in the end with mistakes and brick shots.
Now at halftime everything is so close in all games except Virtus - Barca where Barca have 12 points lead.

Partizan - Monaco game was simply insane,we seen everything there some crazy turnarounds,overtime and everything. Partizan likes close matches i guess and cannot play a single game without them. All the teams keep on crying about refs when they play against Partizan in Belgrade,but nobody seen a couple of stupid offensive calls by refs. Monaco had the game in overtime but just dropped it.

what a win by Partizan last night
Olimpia was up 15 points (45-60) near the end of 3rd quarter, and we made 29-4 series to reach 74-64, atmosphere was simply great

with these two connected home wins, Partizan is now first time in positive score on the table (7-6)
but it had a price, and Avramovic will be out for a not that short time, hopefully he will be back on time for a season finish

Real won second match in Athens, after OLY, PAO is down too, and Efes won in Berlin

I just watched the recap highlight video of this game and it surely was crazy. Another BIG run to finish the game. 29:4 should never happen at this level, and still it does. Milano has some quality players but they looked confused and totally unable to put the ball in the basket.

Efes was the gift of the night only being a 2 point favourite in Berlin. Sure they are missing some players but that won't bother Berlin to lose again ( even though they kind of came back against Kaunas 2 days before ) .
Finally the weekend is upon us, many domestic games to follow, happy times!

When Partizan was down by 15 in 3rd quarter I didn't believed that they can make a comeback. But they managed to do that before end of 3rd quarter. And in 4th quarter everything went into one direction completely. But cost of this win was huge for Partizan - is out for at least 2 months with broken leg. While Milano - it's just crime with such squad to perform like they do. I said it many times - this team isn't going anywhere with Messina.
Interesting game between Baskonia and Crveba Zvezda - Dusko Ivanovic against team that sacked him few months ago. Baskonia is heavy favorite, especially when Napier will miss the game. Fenerbahche is heavy underrated against Barca, but I expect very close game. And Virtus - Maccabi, my money is on Virtus.

After Anadolu Efes started the season very badly they started to show some good performance on the recent weeks. At the beginning of the week Anadolu Efes coach Erdem Can's possible sacking was being discussed. However these two wins were good for him as well. There are many injured players at Anadolu Efes and this is really annoying. However they managed to get over this. I think that Larkin is the best performing player in the Euroleague in the last 1.5 months.

That injury will cost Partizan hard and they now need to go on the market and find a fast replacement for Avramovic. The atmosphere was incredible and i think Milano players were just scared and couldnt hit anything and everytime they missed the fans went even harder. This carries the Partizan players and they are in a much better position then they were last year.

So, we have another coach sacked - Fenerbahche said goodbye to Itoudis. It's very unexpected for me, yeah, after win against Real they lost 4 games in a row in Euroleague and Turkish league, but it was all close games lost by few points and they didn't played bad IMO.
Seems that he will be replaced by Sarunas Jasikevicius https://m.basketnews.com/news-198792-sarunas-jasikevicius-nearing-a-deal-with-fenerbahce.html Not surprising chooce, but probably Nick Calathes isn't happy about it at all :D

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Don't know how many here follow Champions league, but I want to beag a bit about fans of team that I support - Rytas Vilnius. Yesterday over 350 fans travelled over 1000 km away from home to Opava in Czech Republic tu support team. Too bad that I can't video with their performance in arena, but it was amazing, you rarely can  see such huge road trips in European basketball. They were welcomed warm by friendly locals, beer was cheap and good. My only regret that I wasn't there:
https://youtu.be/7AlFpIBNSPY?si=kqvjJN9AnVv1HbMN

I follow everything.  ;D

Rytas has a mediocre season util now but it's always nice to see so many people support teir team and travel so far.

Last night you can see many highly favoured teams go down in European competitions, many high odds winning.

Turk Telekom which has a terrible season until now CRUSHED Buducnost in Podgorica.
In the CL Hamburg won in London despite being a 17 point underdog.  ::)

In Spain Manresa won in Barcelona as a 15 point dog.

I guess many basketball parleys lost because of those "safe games" with odds of 1.1 and less losing.

I also follow it, not that close, but it is a good basket there
nice to hear that Rytas has passionate supporters, is it usual practice to have fans in Europe away matches? I really like to see it, especially when it is all in friendly atmosphere

Partizan is playing in Lithuania tonight, and players are welcomed yesterday on airport by basketball fans
will be a good one against Zalgiris, both teams have some team issues with injuries, and hoping for the best after two wins last week

edit: Zvezda is playing Alba at home tonight, and Zvezda have no win over Alba at home in last four seasons, probably only team in Euroleague that can't win over Alba at home

This replacement would absolutely fire up the supporters as Sarunas Jasikevicius has been a name who the supporters have loved him since he performed for Fenerbahçe as a player. I have been following Itoudis since his time at Banvit. He is absolutely a top-tier coach. However he couldn't adapt to Fenerbahçe and become successful unfortunately. If Itoudis was even given more time I think he was going to be unsuccessful. Therefore I find the decision right which was made by the board.

Yeah, they travel to every away game, but usually it's small groups, maybe 10-15 people - some locations in Champions league is hard to reach, it's very far away and there is no direct flights to smaller cities. But this time was special because Rytas Ultras marked their 25 year anniversary.
Zalgiris - Partizan should be interesting. Partizan is struggling away with just 1 win, but good news that LeDay, Nunnally, and Jaramaz will be available for the game. Zalgiris recently have difficult period, they have problems with injuries. They signed Austin Hollins and Edmond Sumner, but IMO it's questionable signings, not sure how much they can help to Zalgiris.
Crvena Zvezda failing to win vs Alba at home for 4 years sounds crazy, but I expect thatthis thing will end today. Bookmakers also are confident about Zvezda, giving 1.17 for thei win.
Baskonia - Virtus sounds like a good game to watch.

Partizan made a great win in Kaunas, first half was almost without mistake in offense, and that was key to secure a win, third in a row
it does look good to see us in top8, with 8-6 score

Zvezda also won against Alba, to break their 4-year long losing strike against one of worst team each season
Maccabi also won their game, against Efes

And looks that it was last game for Kazys Maskvytis as Zalgiris coach, Trinchieri is going to take this role:
https://m.basketnews.com/news-198874-maksvytis-at-risk-of-losing-zalgiris-job-trinchieri-close-to-take-over.html
Not sure about this decision, I think it's not just coach fault, they made many mistakes in this season squad, like selling Brazdeikis just before season and not signing any replacement for him.
They wanted to hire Jasikevicius, offered him big money, but he rejected offere. Trinchieri, not sure about him, he managed Bayern for several years and didn't even won Bundesliga.
Partizan - if they will start getting away wins more frequently, they can think not only about Top 8, but also avoiding play-in spots.
And Baskonia, very disappointed about their performance, got burned my bet.

Situation is getting ridiculous with Zalgiris. Today it was confirmed that Maksvytis will continue to work in Zalgiris after players disagreed with decision to sack him https://basketnews.com/news-198911-maksvytis-remains-zalgiris-coach-after-players-rebel-against-his-dismissal.html
They even made press conference to explain situation, but there was lot of lie. It was said that they trust in Maksvytis, but also confirmed that they had talks with other coaches - they contradict themselves. Coach Trinchieri even had plane tickets to Kaunas on Friday evening, but offcourse, they didn't confirmed that. It will be very hard for Maksvytis to continue working when he don't have support from front office.

---

Strange evening in Euroleague. Olympiacos - Valencia was some anti-basketball when both teams scored just 119 points combined. And Valencia win is big upset. Another surprise is Milano win vs Barcelona, Valencia were leading for whole 40 minutes. It's difficult period for Barca with several defeats both in Euroleague and ACB.
Jasikevicius started at Fenerbahche with solid win against Monaco. He arrived to team just 24 hours before game, so, probably win isn't his credit, but it's easier for Saras because he knows big part of Fener players as he managed them before.

Partizan secured a win in ABA league on Saturday night, against Buducnost, and now we have Spanish tour in Euroleague
first Valencia, and after that Real in Madrid, back to last season play-off spot, where we lost everything in 10 minutes between 25 and 35 minute of last match

one win from those two matches would be great success for Partizan, Kaminsky will be with a team, questioning that he will play

interesting schedule for Real, they are playing in Belgrade on Tuesday, just to fly home to play Partizan two days later (if second match is scheduled for Belgrade, than Partizan would have to fly back from Spain)

I watched the Partizan game vs Podgorica and the 1st quarter was really weak . I already though about making a small bet on Buducnost but thank god I didn't.  ;D  After the 1st it was all Partizan in dominating fashion.

This weekend I had a small bet on Le Portel vs Nancy in the French LNB.
Le Portel lead the whole game, going into the last quarter by 15 and then closing the game 2:21 in the last 5 minutes, what the fxxk . When Nancy took the lead 2min before the end I was able to cash out my bet with 20% loss, lucky I did that. Of course I could have cashed out after the 3rd and get 80% profit, but who would expect them to make a 12:32 quarter after dominating the whole game, haha. Well, you never know.

important win for Partizan in Valencia, it was a bit tough at the end, but we made another win, and securing our spot within top8 (hopefully top6, to skip first round in play-off)

Zvezda lost at home against Real, pretty much expected and now Partizan had a match against them, let's see what will happen, no pressure

Maccabi won, Virtus won, and Alba proved that Barca is in crisis with a surprise win

What game between Monaco and Panathinaikos. Monaco give Christmas gift to their opponents. Okobo scored 2 with foul with 2.5 second remaining, but missed free throw intentionally. And then Marius Grigonis dropped 3 point buzzer-beater:
https://twitter.com/chrisalucard/status/1737567261051715784
Zalgiris was leading vs Fenerbahche for 3 quarters, but Fener took initiative in 4th quarter and didn't looked back. They remain undefeated at home.

Virtus - Olympiacos was good to watch, Virtus had very solid 4th quarter and showed that deserve to be in 2nd place.
Barca is struggling a lot recently, loss against weakest team in Euroleague is great indicator of it, not really sure whats's wrong with them.

It's so stupid to miss the ft intentionally by Okobo. Sure it takes minimum time of the clock but since Pana had another timeout that action was truly worthless.
Without the timeout it's 100% the right thing to do, but since it wasn't, his action was just stupid!

The defence on the last play was awful as well. How Grigionis can be wide open and all by himself top of the key is so funny. Well, we got a nice buzzer win out of it.

What happens to Barcelona lately is really alarming. In ACB they also already lost 5 of 15 games. That doesn't sound much but for Barcelona it is. They have a different standard.

Real smashed us last night, but Partizan is still on position 4, and it would be too much to win both matches on Spain tour
Belgrade now has another derby match, and Maccabi lost "at home" against Zvezda, pretty much a surprise, but Zvezda played a lot better in second half

Barca is playing today in Kaunas, and Zalgiris is @2.5 to win this, seems as value bet, considering Barca form
Efes is hosting Baskonia, in another interesting match

6 games and 6 wins for the visiting team, how often do you see something like that.

Sure most visiting teams have been the favorite or the games was pretty much a 50/50 before the match but still you do t see that too often.
With the electric atmosphere in most arenas it’s not easy to win away games in European competitions, especially in the euroleague.

agree, most away wins were expected, but to see all six away wins is pretty rare

Zalgiris had good chances to win over Barca, but only 7 points in last quarter was not enough to close the deal
Baskonia won against Efes, and that was biggest surprise yesterday, although PAO win against Milano is also surprising

Yeah, all 6 away teams winning their games is something what yoiu can't see often, but there were no huge upsets - either they were big favorites or it's 50/50 game without clear favorite.
Efes - Baskonia was good game, leading team changed many times, but Efes had poor 4th quarter, letting opponents to score 30 points.
Now we have 8 teams with identical 9-7 record between 4 and 10 places what is best proff which shows how competetive Euroleague is. There is probably 3 teams which can be rulled out from fight for playoff/play-in spots - Alba, ASVEL and Zalgiris.

There is something wrong happening with Barcelona recently. Now they lost to Unicaja in ACB league and lost quite big. Few more losses and I guess that chair of Roger Grimau may become hot. And great vibe in Malaga, always fun to watch their games with orchestra playing during game :D.
7 Euroleague games tomorrow, perfect time to watch some good basketball when there isn't much football in action (except EPL). Starting with Istanbul derby between Efes and Fnerbahche, where Fener is big favorite IMO.They're playing great with new coach, while Efes is struggling a lot with so many injuries. And Partizan - Virtus in early slot.
Later Olimpia - Baskonia looks like best game to watch.

I guess will see a change of the coach in Barcelona anytime soon.
They have the players to compete on a high level but for some reason it just doesn't come together for them.
When was the last time we saw them losing so many games combines at EL and ACB, I can't remember. The funny thing is, it's not even that many losses if it would be a normal team.
But from a team and roster like Barcelona you can definitely expect better!

just thought the same, what a lose for Barca, and their game fall apart in last quarter

Partizan plays against Virtus tonight, I am a fan, but odds @1.4 for Partizan win are really low, Virtus with handicap is maybe a better choice
Efes and Fener also a really derby, while all other matches have a favorite, although odds on Valencia are great value @3 against Bayern in Munich, them or Baskonia should win away match, and odds suggest that Baskonia is closer to it, but I think that Valencia should be that one

We managed to defeat Anadolu Efes in the Turkish derby played in the Euroleague by 89-84 this week. I don't think that Anadolu Efes coach Erdem Can will maintain his job. I think Nick Calathes was the star of the match at Fenerbahçe. The Greek guard who had difficulties in 3-pointers became one of the names who brought the win to their team with a 60% field goal percentage this evening.

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/12/28/I9uBo.md.jpeg (https://talkimg.com/image/I9uBo)

Even though I followed the match among Anadolu Efes supporters there were many Fenerbahçe fans at the stadium just like me.  ;D

I thought that you're Efes fan as you often post photos from their home games :D. Congrats with a win! It was nice one and really tough, Efes were leading most part of game. Calathes is hot now, who could have thought that he will perform so well under Jasikevicius
Partizan lost at home to Virtus. Saw only end of game as I watched Istanbul derby. Virtus were leading most of time, but Partizan had great chance to win. But obviously not Kaminsky had to receive ball for buzzer-beater.
Olimpia had no problems with Baskonia, Valencia almost made comeback against Bayern, but still, hosts won, Real won against ASVEL just by 1 point and Zalgiris are digging up in the bottom. But it's really profitable to bet against them when they play at home, bookies giving nice odds for away team.

Nice view!
I truly envy you for the opportunity to see these games, especially for such a reasonable price.
The atmosphere must be great every game. I know when Turkish games played in Germany when I went to some games there, it was always packed with Turkish fans basically making it an away game for the home team, haha.

Next time I visit Europe I will take the opportunity to watch some games as well.
What I can watch in Japan is too expensive for such a low game quality.

Partizan is in series of three loses, and last night we didn't even deserved a win
at least my bet goes through

Valencia and Baskonia both losing wasn't expected from me


congrats man, great win last night

I like Efes and I'm supporting them by going to their Euroleague matches as Efes' stadium is in a 10-minute distance to my home. However I'm a big Fenerbahçe fan. :P


I'm really very happy for finding a chance to watch quality matches for a very cheap price. Maybe the only nice side of the country I'm in is this. :D As Anadolu Efes are going to play 3 matches home in January they made a special package and ticket prices are really very cheap. This time I bought a ticket from T4 and paid around 16.5 euros for 3 matches.

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/12/29/I8MRI.th.png (https://talkimg.com/image/I8MRI)


Thank you bro. It was a very important win for us.

I guess it may be the end of Roger Grimau in Barcelona. Another defeat and it's big this time 91:71 vs Monaco, they had no chance today. On Basketnews Discord channel their journalist said that Grimau may be sacked before the end of 2023, wouldn't be surprised at all.

Now it's clear :). I guess there is no big rivalry between Efes and other big Istanbul clubs as they don't have such long history and football club behind them. It looks that next home game of Fenerbhche against Maccabi is moved to my country. Probably I won't be able to visit it as it's played about 70 km from city where I live. Interesting how much ticket will cost, they haven't started to sell it.

what is a reason for that?

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when we are at match visits, last home match by Partizan against Virtus was used for a big humanitarian action to collect toys for children without parents for NY, it was a pretty great atmosphere, and playground was covered by toys
you can see some of that on a link - https://twitter.com/PartizanBC/status/1740429800152387782

After another loss Zalgiris sacked coach Maskvytis and he will be replaced by Andrea Trinchieri. This time it's already officila news. IMO, poor results isn't just Maksvytis fault, Zalgiris squad is weak and they had lot of injuries. But changes probably were needed as it looked that players don't have much faith in coach.

Officially it's because Fenerbahche couldn't guarantee safety of Maccabi in Turkey:
https://basketnews.com/news-199470-fenerbahce-maccabi-game-to-take-place-in-lithuania.html
And seems that there is tension going on between happening between Turkey and Israel as Turkish president called Israel Prim Minister Netanyahu not much different than Hitler

It looked amazing, love this tradition from some basketball and football clubs!

This is unfortunately an embarrassing incident for us. However this is the point the party which has been in power for 21 years has brought us to. We have come to the point at which we can't even guarantee the safety of a basketball team.

Even though not playing the match at home will be a disadvantage for Fenerbahçe the team are in a great form now. And I think that we will win with the support of our fans as well in Lithuania which is Sarunas Jasikevicius's hometown.

It's always sad and unnecessary when politics get mixed up with sports.
We live in uncertain times at the moment, very sad for all of us.

You always think sports would create a bridge between nations, with things like this happening these positive attributes are seriously in danger. Let's hope all parties get can keep a cool head and focus on what's important.
There are so many things happening in the world at the moment, we should all stick together and help each other instead of blaming and fighting.

big win for Crvena Zvezda in Istanbul, Fenerbahce started well, but Zvezda was back till half-time and got to a win in last quarter
important win to be back into fight for play-off

Partizan is at +30 against Asvel, it seems that Asvel is not a Euroleague quality team, as it looks in this match
Zalgiris won against Alba, Maccabi won against Monaco, and Olympiakos is trying to save their win over Olimpia in last minutes, after bad last quarter

Not watching Partizan game, but from result it looks that relaxed a bit in 4th quarter and Asvel managed not to get humiliated. Anyway, good practice before Belgrade derby on Thursday :).
While Zvezda made surprise, it's first defeat for Saras at Fenerbahche.
Tomorrow we have El Clasico and even playing away Real is favoured. Nothing surprising when you see how they play and how much Barca is struggling recently.

First of all happy new year to all my fellow Basketball lovers. Hope you are having a good time and your favourite team is bringing you many joyful moments.

Given the recent struggles of Barcelona it's no surprise Madrid is considered a 2-3 point favorite to win this game.
Many people consider this Real team the best team in Europe at the moment, by far. Of course their Euroleague record is also reflecting that but I saw several videos recently stating that Real could even compete in the NBA with these types of performances they are pulling of this season. I know it's a far cry to expect the be a winning team but they could at least beat the Pistons I suppose, hahaha.

So, Barca won in El Clasico, maybe it helped for them that they were understimated a bit and there was less pressure for them. In 1st half it looked that Real will run away with crazy offense, but it didn't happened. Vesely, what a beast he was today.
Efese suffered another defeat, already 5th in a row and getting more far away from play-in spot. I guess coach Can chair is very hot now.
@CLS63, price of tickets for tomorrow's Fenerbache - Maccabi game starts from €29 up to €234. It would be ok price for Vilnius or Kaunas, but not for city like Panevezys where they barely fill half of arena on local Lietkabelis games with 2x cheaper tickets. I guess that there will be about half arena filled, maybe 2500-3000 people.

At the same time if we consider that there aren't many Turkish people living in Lithuania then the stadium wouldn't be full of people much as you said. Fenerbahçe must win this match absolutely after losing to Crvena zvezda home.

Unfortunately the other Turkish representative Anadolu Efes maintained their bad run by losing to Valencia away in the match they started quite well.

I didn't expect Barca to bounce back in this games, especially versus the best team in Europe at the moment.
But hey, what better game to finally get a signature win, right? It's kind of a common occurence in basketball. Teams are losing against teams they should beat easy and then against a superior team they finally show their true colours.

I guess it the special feeling and motivation of playing in the "classico" . No Barca player wants to lose against Real, especially at home.

Don't know what happened to Jan Vesely in this one though. His point average in ACB is only about 7 points, not much better in EL and suddenly he comes up with 27 points.  ;D

Anadolu Efes went through a restructuring with Erdem Can, but so far it has not been able to find quality basketball rhythm, especially on the road. If they want to be successful in the Euroleague, they must manage to win away games. Yesterday, they lost again away against Valencia. They have won two out of 10 away matches so far and these matches are Alba Berlin and Monaco. Alba Berlin is already in last place, but Monaco is a team in 2nd place. While we were wondering if esko Anadolu Efes was back after the Monaco win, the Valencia defeat yesterday showed us that this was a dream.
It is considered a miracle that Anadolu Efes made it to the Final Four this year.

Fenerbahçe won against Maccabi in Lithuania much more comfortable than I expected today. Especially in the first half of the match Georgios Papagiannis dominated the inside.After losing to Crvena zvezda at our home winning against Maccabi was very important for us. On top of that as we won by a big gap we captured the superiority against Maccabi on head-to-head as well.

Tomorrow the other Turkish representative Anadolu Efes are going to play against Real Madrid away. Frankly I'm expecting a high-scoring match. Especially when we think about Anadolu Efes' weaknesses in defense it wouldn't be a surprise for me if Real Madrid score 100 points.

Didn't expected such one-sided Belgrade derby. Crvena Zvezda started game so powerful and after 1st quarter they didn't looked back. Perfect double week for Zvezda and with 2 wins they become significantly closer from play-in zone.
Great drama between Olympiakos and Monaco. Mike James tried to become hero, but he missed half court buzzer beater and Oly won the game

Fenerbahche left no chance for Maccabi, winning by 35 points, scoring 109, it's clubtheir highest scoring game ever in Euroleague.
With all respect to Efes, I don't see them winning in Madrid. But agree that we can expect high scoring game.

didn't expect it either, but they beat us easily
and yeah, two wins, and Zvezda is much closer to top10 spots, while we are having a bad strike after few wins in a row
overall, will be really interesting fight till the end

Asvel won against Zalgiris, seems that they are closing their chances to top10 position, in a bottom derby

handicap on Baskonia seems as a good choice for tonight, Barca is far from top form, and @1.3 home odds doesn't have any value

WTF I just watched? 4 overtimes between Real and EEfes, are you kidding me? I'm watching basketball for maybe 20 years, but it's first time when I watch game with 4 overtimes. Now I can't even remeber watching game with 3 overtimes. And it's also highest scoring game in Euroleague history. Musa with 40 points, unbeleavable.
6th defeat in a row for Efes, but now they can blame only themselves for wasting 9 point lead in 2nd overtime. Feel sad for them. Now I just hope that this weekend's games in domestic league will get postponed for Real and and Efes :D. Otherwise it will be easy money to bet for their opponents. Some players played almost without substitutions.
I have no words remaining...

This Real game has been the craziest one I have ever seen, hands down. I wish that they haven't killed my parlay lol, but at least I didn't lose a lot of FUN. Regardless, it was tough to see it end, as in games like this one, neither team deserves to lose. But I guess one had to, and even tho they lost, Efes has nothing to be ashamed off. The thing is, I'm not so sure it's Efes turning the tide around, but rather Real struggling a bit after the Barsa loss and barely winning against Asvel as well. We'll see what the next week brings, there's gonna be a double round again, and we'll get to see even more of the best basketball in the world, in my opinion.

Never seen this in my life aswell. I think thus must be some kind of record in the euroleague. Efes had a few chances to win the game but just wasnt lucky at all and Real Madrid got really lucky and took the win in the 4th overtime. Still what a match so many players with 20+ points and Musa with 40 points. Musa carried the team again in the league again.

It was longest ever Euroleague with 4 overtimes, previous record was just 2 overtimes. Real is first team ever to score 130 points and both teams scoring 256 points is highest result ever. Previous one was just 225 between Baskonia and Efes last season.
Larkin over 53 minutes played, Pleiss 52 minutes, it will be difficult to repeat such thing again.
https://twitter.com/EuroLeague/status/1743413396450537559

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Some attention to other game, Valencia lost in such stupid way, score was equal, they had attack and with less than 2 seconds remaining Brandon Davies fouled while fighting for rebound. Offcourse that PAO used this gift, Lessort scored one free throw and won the game.

Anadolu Efes lost to Real Madrid 130-126 in the match that ended 81-81 in normal time and went into overtime. Efes had the right to the last attack when the match was 81-81, but the shot used by Shane Larkin was not accurate and the match ended in a draw.
Efes feels the absence of Vasilije Micic, who went to Oklahoma at the beginning of the season. This wouldn't be the case if he was still on the team.
The top scorer of the match was Mario Hezonja from Real Madrid with 31 points.

When 2-3 people already wrote about this game, the outcome and what happened there is no need to spam another useless summary post.
I kindly ask you to refrain using this thread for spam, thank you. I prefer to keep this thread clean of posts that have 0 purpose.

Thank you!

Was expecting that it was a record just didnt see it anywhere. But still what a match i enjoyed every second of this game. Still that miss by Larkin in end was insane he had an easy layup in last seconds and missed it. O most all of the games yesterday were really close and were really intresting except the match between Alba and Virtus.

just a look on Euroleague table, and one can see how equal teams are
from 4th till 11th, it is just a one win difference, Olimpia, Zvezda and Bayern are trying to catch up with 11 loses, and all others are fighting great

Valencia missing out on a PAO win is a prime example how close all things are
just Real, Barca, and surprisingly Virtus in top3

This evening will witness very interesting matches. Fenerbahçe will face Obradovic's Partizan at home, and Anadolu Efes will face Ergin Ataman's Panathinaikos away. Obradovic is undoubtedly the career coach of the Euroleague and a coach who has a special place among the Fenerbahçe Team and its fans. When Obra enters the hall in the evening, the fans will cheer with love.
Ergin Ataman is also the coach with the longest career among Turkish coaches, having won two consecutive Euroleague championships with Anadolu Efes.
F.Bahçe will most likely beat Partizan. Panathinaikos defeated Anadolu Efes.

It was very important for Fenerbahçe to win by coming back from a 17-point gap against Partizan in a match that we played the first quarter terrible. We can say that Nate Sestina played his career game in the Euroleague. Besides Dorsey also played his best match since he came to Fenerbahçe. The worrying thing at Fenerbahçe is not being able to get efficiency from their centers. If Šarūnas Jasikevičius didn't play with 5 shorts today I think it would have been much more difficult for Fenerbahçe to make a comeback.

https://talkimg.com/images/2024/01/09/s1Lhw.png (https://talkimg.com/image/s1Lhw)

congrats on a win, and also on winning ticket
Partizan was pretty bad in second half, and deserved to lose match, which is fourth lose in last five matches, not a best outlook

Asvel won second match in a row, after Zalgiris they won over Zvezda at home, a pretty unexpected outcome, bearing in mind late Zvezda form
Zalgiris also won over Valencia to complete that circle, away win in Spain after losing against Asvel

Euroleague week is still on, matches in next three days

Fenerbahçe continues to move forward in the Euroleague. They defeated Bayern Munich 98-91 in extra time in the match, which ended 81-81 in normal time.
Bayern, who fought very well in normal time, did not transfer the ball under the basket in overtime, tried to score points with forced outside shots, and could not succeed in this, and ended the match with defeat.
I know that Dyshawn Pierre made his mark in overtime, especially with the baskets he scored, and brought the victory.
Thus, Fenerbahçe completed the double match week with two wins.

I was expecting a much easier win by Fenerbahce at home against Bayern Munich but they won in over time easily at the end. They are moving really fast up and i dont like it. My Partizan is losing a lot of games lately and we will fallout of playoff really soon if teams below continue to win like they do now.

After Šarūnas Jasikevičius has taken over Fenerbahçe have a good series with an easy fixture and have reached an assertive point to qualify for play-offs. We have captured the head-to-head advantage against Partizan and Maccabi as well. I was also expecting us to win easier however we managed to win after over time despite its being difficult. Wilbekin scored 30 points and I think he showed a performance which deserved not only to be the player of the match but also the player of the week.

Nice games in Euroleague but these days I am also watching some womans basketball.

Last night Schio from Italy welcomed the strongest team in Europe, Fenerbahce. Schio lost the first half with some points but then destroyed Fener in the 2nd half to get the BIG upset. Odds have been up to 8.0 for a Schio win, who would have thought.

In Eurocup elimination games there have also been some great games. Besiktas vs Bourges for example was crazy. The French team was a slight favourite to win and lead by 19 in the first half but then completely fell apart, another classic comeback in Europe these days.

important win for Partizan to stay on a positive note, and wasn't looked that way in first half
we were broadly down, but somehow reemerged to win this one
happy about the outcome
it seems that HT score is not replicating on FT score Partizan matches lately

Olympiakos lost after winning strike
Efes won important match to stay in the race against Virtus

What I took from this week is how unpredictable this league is.
Ok, ASVEL Lyon is also a bad team but a 25 point home loss against ALBA Berlin squad with basically the same problems and bad season in both EL and domestic is just too much.

These 2 teams are underperforming hard this season.

This weekend is bringing us some nice games domestically. In France 3rd place Paris ( which is strong this season ) is hosting the best team in the country, Monaco.
In other leagues there are also nice games to follow so the weekend is set for people that love to see nice basketball from Europe.

Making comeback from -24 and winning game is one of biggest comebacks in Euroleague history. Yesterday I already wanted to write post asking what's wrong with Partizan, but fortunately I haven't done it.
That Efes win against Virtus after so many losses is huge relief for coach Can and also keeps their hope for play-in alive. Solid Baskonia win against Olympiacos

I''m not really sure what ASVEL is doing in Euroleague... Theyalready changed 2 coaches this season and after club sacked Pozzecco, ASVEL owner Tony Parker criticised him so much that it didn't looked professional at all.

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Speaking about domestic league. Just watched Lithuanian league game, derby of Vilnius between Ryas and Wolves. Happy for my club Rytas easy win, it was away win for them, but 90% of arena supported Rytas because Wolves is plastic club without any real fans. But I'm so disappointed that Rytas can't play in Europe so well, even against weak team, we had another shameful season in BCL which ended for us so early.

Even though I had a ticket for the match last night I couldn't go to the Efes match. Efes won the match by dominating it. I can say that Efes has made quite progress in terms of game in the recent weeks. Now Efes are going to play home against Barcelona and after that against Monaco. In case of winning both of these matches Efes would come to a position to be assertive for play-offs again.

The toughest match of the day will be between Anadolu Efes and Barcelona. Barcelona is a higher team in terms of points, but their away record is not good. Efes may not have a claim, but Euroleague matches and prestige are still important. I see Anadolu Efes as the side closer to victory.
Another remarkable match will be in Germany. Alba Berlin will play against Bayern Munich in the match that will be considered as the German derby. Alba Berlin is a team that is lower in points but has defeated Barcelona on its home field. Bayern Munich started the season with Pablo Laso this year, but even though the Coach is a coach who has won a championship before, team quality and budget are very important. Bayern can achieve success in the Euroleague if they build a stronger team next year.

Efes just blown up Barca completely - 98:74. Didn't saw this coming, expected to see close game. It was probably best game this season for Efes and they're getting closer to playin spots, while Barca still kepp 2nd place.
No drama in German derby - Bayern got advantage in 2nd quarter and didn't looked back.
Baskonia survives in Belgrade's hell and takes important win. A bit unexpected to see ASVEL leading against Virtus, but there is still lot of time left.

I think that wasn't a big surprise given the the performances by Barcelona in the past weeks . Their only real win came against non other than Real Madrid, the rest was just disappointing.
Seems like Efes is slowly getting back into shape again, that's nice to see!

As expected ASVEL blew a 9 point lead they took into the last quarter and in the end losing by 10. Yet another big comeback quarter in Euroleague.
Expected loss but not an expected play by play I would say, haha.

Some interesting results in Euroleague today. Monaco simply destroyed Real Madrid 98:74, they were leading whole 40 minutes and at one moment Monaco lead reached 29 points. Such huge result is big upset, but even teams like Real can have bad days.
Zalgiris reached comfortable win at home against Fenerbahche 98:75. Probably too much is already wasted to fight for Play-in, but seems that Trinchieri managed to change team face.
Panathinaikos won against Partizan. PAO is on fire, in last 8 Euroleague games they only lost once. It was good game to watch, but poor 4th quarter didn't let Partizan to fight till the end.

Without Kevin Punter, Partizan's chances get low. Jaramaz is very inefficient and Jaleen Smith doesn't get much playing time. Perry Dozier continues his versatile game. 16p-7r-8a-6st are excellent stats. There seems to be some unrest in Partizan. They never play Kaminsky. Punter is nothing like last year. Jaramaz is terrible. He can't seem to get into a rhythm. On the other hand, Pana has the peace of mind of having found a rhythm one way or another. With Grant and Lesort, they raise the energy of the team very high. They gave the offence to Nunn and Sloukas, they got comfortable. Especially Nunn still having a lot of turnovers, but Pana accepts it. When you leave all the creative element on him, turnovers are a byproduct. It's hard to say how far Pana can go but things seem good.

Didn't watched the game - what happened to Crvena Zvezda? They had no chance today against Alba. They burned my bet - odds weren't high, so, I had quite some money on this game.
Another upset is ASVEL win against Bayern. Nobody wants to be last.
Fenerbahche and Real got quite comfortablw wins, while Maccabi managed to win against Panathinaikos. PAO were on fire recently.
4 more games tomorrow, and all 4 is looking interesting.

I just checked the pre game odds for the Alba vs Zvezda game and Alba was on a 4 point underdog with odd of 1.5 for Zvezda to win.
Looks a little bit like a trap game since Zvezda is MUCH better than Alba on paper. They didn't even miss big time players ( Teodosic these days can't be considered big time) and still they found themselves down by as many as 22 in the 3rd.

Really a strange game, just like Bayern.

Seems like the race to not become last place is on.  ;D

Fenerbahçe continues to win on its home field. last night d
It defeated Virtus Bologna, which was ranked above it in terms of points, 88-75. They lost once to Red Star on their home field. (We can also see it as a work accident 😔)
Fenerbahçe team plays very intense matches at Ülker Sports and Event Hall. He performs very well with the driving force of his audience, but unfortunately he cannot show the same success on the road. Now there is a 3-game away series, the first of which is Asvel and Asvel is a team at the bottom of the points table and Fenerbahçe must definitely beat Asvel. Because the next two matches are against Monaco and Panathinaikos and these two matches will be more difficult.

not sure what it is between Alba and Zvezda, but Zvezda is probably only team that had negative balance with them (it is actually 8/2 for Alba in last 5 seasons)
wrote about that before match in Belgrade, where Zvezda managed to win over Alba after four consecutive loses at home
sorry for your bet

Partizan is facing Zalgiris tonight in Belgrade, hope to see a win, it is a really important match for us to stay in upper half
odds are low to risk it, and judging by Partizan plays at home, handicap on Zalgiris is better option (while I hope that Partizan will win it, and not close it)

https://i.postimg.cc/3R6yC7k2/efes-monaco.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

I was at Sinan Erdem Sports Hall today to watch Efes' game against Monaco. Efes were decent in the first half. However their performance in Q3 was a big disappointment. Their choices in offense organizations weren't good enough. Ending up with turnovers in really critical times also had a big affect on Efes to lose this game by 78-80.

Beaubois could have nearly extended the game to overtime but it turned out not to be a 3-pointer.  :(  The coach Erdem Can targeted to keep the same level they had in the Barcelona game but there wasn't such performance this time.

Partizan won it last night, and was just above handicap
nevertheless, happy to see us win one match without getting to much behind and leading during the match
big change in comparison to usual -10+ to start playing some basketball

as it looks now, Partizan, Valencia, Baskonia and Olympiakos will fight it out for three places in play-off first round

Is there anyone who has seen Georgios Papagiannis' three-pointer in the last second? As a person who has been watching basketball for a long time Papagiannis managed to carry the game to overtime in a moment that I thought the match ended and Fenerbahçe won the match. I can't even imagine the disappointment Bahçeşehir players had.

https://x.com/Eurohoopsnet/status/1751325290435850265 (https://x.com/Eurohoopsnet/status/1751325290435850265)

Wanted to post it, but you have done it before me. Crazy moment, even coach Jasikevicius already accepted loss and already walked to shake hands with Bahçeşehir coach. Such moments is ver rare in basketball and it instantly gave me flashbacks of similar Zoran Planinic buzzer beater:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K83bSLQIHsY Klemen Prepelic also have done something similar when he played for Joventut:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uTyWm6PKYE

Damn, Efes lost so many close games... They don't get defeated by 20 points, almost all their losses is just few points margin. Watched game and wanted to see overtime, but yeah, Beaubois really crossed on the line.

Oh wow, thanks for sharing.
This shot really deserves the title "desperation shot"!
Kind of a mix between a hook shot and a put shot, only difference its from like 35 or more meters. Amazing!
Just checked and watched the overtime as well, comeback complete!

Many other nice games yesterday as well. In Germany 3rd place and German champion Ratiopharm Ulm (13:4) lost at home by 21 points against 16th place Tübingen (4:13) . How these results can happen is beyond my understanding.

And Real got destroyed by Gran Canaria today 77:00. Yeah, they have excuse of missing many players because of injuries, but still, result is huge. Seems that trip to Las Palmas is one of toughest in Europe (not surprising when you see where this island is located) and Gran Canaria losses at home is very rare thing.
But this is why I love leagues like ACB or German BBL There is so many good level teams that every week you can get upsets. I think it says a lot about level of league that Baskonia is out of playoff zone in ACB.
Today there is Belgrade derby between Crvena Zvezda and Partizan in Adriatic league, too bad that this league isn't shown on TV in my country.

Last night I was up late to watch Crvena zvezda vs Partizan. This was an exiting game!!
Everything looked done in the first half already when Partizan was done by as many as 21 points, I felt a bit sad because I stayed awake just to witness a blowout.

But then in the 2nd half Partizan slowly got back into the game, always making some small runs but Crvena always had an answer until the 4th quarter. Beginning of the 4th being down 19 you would think the game is over, but never for these 2 teams.

The game got closer and closer and even a tie game in the last minute after a 3 point foul and 3 sunk fts. After the game winner by Crvena, Partizan still had a shot to win the game but it was a bad shot with also 2sec on the clock, could have gotten a better one with a pass.
After the end the atmosphere was as usual, AMAZING. That's why I watch these game, it's so electric. NBA feels so boring compared to this.

Fenerbahçe Asvel passed away without any losses. Even though they trailed 42-39 in the first half, they managed to win the match with a score of 73-83.
Jonathan Motley had an important share in Fenerbahçe's victory with 24 points.
Bayern Munich Baskonia match ended 94-94 in normal time. Bayern won the extra time with a score of 112-109.
This Bayern team is an unbalanced team and while they beat Baskonia at home, they can still lose at home to Asvel, the weakest team in the league in terms of performance.
If Pablo Laso stays in the team next year and the Bavarian team allocates a good budget for basketball, the Euroleague championship may come. The final four is very difficult this year.

Bayern - Baskonia was great game. Codi Miller-Mcintyre sent game to overtime with buzzer beater, but Bayern survived game in in overtime.
For me Bayern doesn't looks like team which have ambitions to win Euroleague soon. It's good organisation what comes from football, but they aren't ready to spend lot of money to win this trophy and don't get any returns. After all, in Europe you can't earn in basketball.
In other games Crvena Zvezda didn't had any troubles against Valencia. It was a bit strange to see many empty seats in Stark arena and calm atmosphere there. But maybe it's normal, after Belgrade derby this game looked meh.

After huge defeat in Kaunas against Zalgiris, Anadolou Efes sacked coach Erdem Can. It's already 8th coach in Euroleague who lost his job this season, so, it's almost half of teams. Efes previously had many injured players and lot of very close loses, but there is no excuses for yesterday's loss by 26 points. Having all main players available and you lose game already in 1st quarter - 34:14.
Interesting who will be their next coach, I guess that appointing assistant is just temporary option.

Partizan lost important match last against Virtus, and we had our chances to win, but lost in the end

and it was a rollercoaster for me as well
had waiting Dortmund to win, and Virtus to win on a parlay
and since Dortmund wasn't scoring, and Partizan took a lead, I thought, at least we are going to win, but as soon as Dortmund finished, Partizan also stopped playing, and lost match, although had +6 when Dortmund ended

onwards to next round

Well that's classic.
I almost never can win 2 team parleys. Always both teams start well, then suddenly 2 team stops playing and in the end both teams lose, at odds of 1.4-1.5 for each, always.
Seems like Kaunas is picking up some good wins lately, they look impressive.
Efes also secured their first win after firing their coach, even coming back after a terrible first half and being down by 10 or something. After the break they pretty much destroyed Milano.

Me as a Dortmund fan can feel your pain, even if you just bet on them.  ;D

It's a nightmare for F.Bahçe Basketball Team fans.
They closed the first half of the Monaco match ahead 36-44. The fight was close in the third quarter, but no matter what, the team scored 8 points in the fourth quarter, inviting defeat.
Monaco won the match by scoring 21 points in the last quarter. (76-69)
Some things in Fenerbahçe are completely psychological. I can't understand how a team can play well in three quarters and then play so badly in the last quarter.
Mike James looks to have found himself in Monaco. He is a player who could have made Monaco champions if he had not created unrest within the team and had problems with the coach, but he was always the one who caused problems in every team he went to. As far as I remember, CSK was expelled from Moscow. If he recovers psychologically, he will contribute a lot to the team.
F.Bahçe got the results I expected. I thought he would beat Asvel but lose to Monaco, and that's what happened.
The only thing I regret is losing against Monaco when we could have easily beaten them.

Have you seen the Anadolu Efes - Milano game? The third quarter was spectacular for the Turkish side. I mean a 30-7 quarter score by saying that.  :D

They really made me worried in the last quarter despite winning though. The main issue for Anadolu Efes was with defending in this game. They just couldn't defend inside well. I can't say they were good against outside shot attempts either.  :(  It was at least nice to see some progress in set play. I couldn't see it in the previous home game against Monaco much.

What do you think on their chance to reach playoffs stage?

Difficultto say something about Efes now. It was just their first game after coach Can was sacked. It's common that after manager change team gets some moral boost and win few games, but it doesn't always works in long distance. But with their current roster and return of injured players they have potential to fight for play-in spot

Yeah it was the first game for Tomislav Mijatovic after the previous coach Erdem Can's departure. It is a good start for Mijatovic honestly but he looks like an interim coach for Anadolu Efes for now. The board want to give him a chance before finding a new coach.

Larkin and Pleiss took a big responsibility in the Monaco game. Darius Thompson needs to improve his game again. He was great in the Bologna and Real Madrid games by scoring 20+ points. If he also makes a bigger effort in the remaining games Anadolu Efes would be more hopeful for playoffs.  :)

Efes won this round opener against Maccabi, and it is now 2 loses/wins from entering play-off position (10th place)
again above 100 points, Efes resolved the match in last quarter, and Larkin was on top of his game, with 20+ points contribution

Partizan is playing against Bayern at home, and it can't go without being down in 2nd half, Bayern is currently leading 5 points (25:30) as type this
hopefully, we will turn table around in second half, as usual, really important match to stay in the race for play-off

Efes had to play their home game in Riga, Latvia, but they felt like at home. They got very solid win against direct competitor and now just 2 wins away from play-in zone.
Milan - Real, in 2nd half Milan had 21 point lead, but that's not enough to feel confident because Real is team that never give up. They made strong comeback in 4th quarter, but Milan survives somehow and got very rare win vs Real, just 5th in XXI century if I hear right.
Wow, such painful defeat for Partizan at home. They had chances to close game in 4th quarter, didn't managed to do it and paid huge price. I really can't understand how it happened that Kaminsky was left to defend against Francisco... And still, Punter was so close from winning game in 0.8 seconds

Is someone watching the woman's olympic qualifiers which are taking place since yesterday?
There are some great games in the books already. Japan made it rain from 3 beating Spain in the "group of death (other teams Canada and Hungary).
Team USA came from behind after being down big against Belgium. After the comeback in the 4th Belgium took the lead again shortly before the end but USA won by 2, really sad because Belgium really deserved it ( they have been a 16 point underdog by the way ) .

Right now is Canada vs Spain which is a tough battle again.
Normally I am not a big fan of woman's basketball, especially WNBA is a joke. Woman's euroleague on the other hand is fun to watch because there is often some nice atmosphere as well.
Anyway, let's see who gets the tickets for the Olympics this year. I'm routing for Germany and Japan, my 2 homes.

Yesterday I forgot to mention one extremely rare thing in Euroleague - Baskonia's Codi Miller-McIntyre achieved triple double with 11 points, 10 rebounds and 20 assists. It's just 4th triple double in Euroleague's history. And also, 20 assists is new record.
Looks that Crvena Zvezda will have to play next one or few games without spectators. Even if referees did mistake there, it doesn't gives right you to start throwing stuff to referees and players. While Zalgiris is on fire, they won 4 from 5 recent Euroleague games and getting closer to playins. Coach Trinchieri really changed face of team.
Panathinaikos got nice win vs Fenerbahche, they got advantage in 2nd quarter and didn't let their opponents into striking distance until the end. And Virtus - Monaco, great game between two similar level teams, just someone has to lose it and it was Virtus this time.
No Euroleague next week as we have time dedicated for National Cups.

Have nothing against womens basketball, but in general, I only watch it when my national team is playing. After watching mens basketball, it's not easy to watch women's basketball with lover speed, less phisicality and other stuff. I didn't even knew that there is Olympic qualification now. Why USA and France is playing there, despite already having spot in Olympics as World Cup winners or hosts?

There is no Euroleague games this and next week, but it doesn't means that we won't have good basketball soon. This week in most countries is dedicated to national cups - Spain, Italy, France, Turkey, Lithuania, Serbia, Germany, Greece and so on. Some have Final 8, some Final 4 tournament, but due to nature of tournament, it delivers plenty of upsets usually.
I'm going to follow Lithuanian cups  for obvious reasons and Spanish cup most closely. But will tune in some games or final at least in Turkey, France or Germany if schedule won't overlap. Also, it's possible to have big derbies like Partizan Crvena Zvezda or Pao - Olympiacos in Serbia and Greece, but watching it comfrtable on big screen will be more difficult as these cups aren't shown on TV in my country.
Gran Canaria playing with Valencia and despite that Valencia is Euroleague team, I wouldn't call them favorites. In other 1/4 final Real vs Murcia, don't see any surprises here.

Yeah this weekend is not so good in my opinion. I am not really interested in cup games for whatever reason.
In the NBA there is also the all star weekend, so there nothing to watch over there as well.  :'(

Maybe I will play some basketball myself for a change, this week I went for the first time after the winter and it really was fun to enjoy some fresh air while shooting hoops outside.

We already have some upsets in 1/4 finals of cups. In Italy Virtus got eliminated by Reggiana, in France Asvel were beaten by Nanterre. In Spain Gran Canaria managed to send game to overtime with great buzzer-beater https://twitter.com/ACBCOM/status/1758252031540682995, but in overtime Valencia left no chance for them.

Personally I like cups, single game elimination means that that underdogs get bigger chance and there is plenty of upsets. NBA, I don't follow regular season, don't even talk about All star weekend, it's boring.
Basketball outside - good for. Here in Lithuania it's still too cold. We have no snow now, but still too cold, I think that we can shoot some hoops outside no earlier than middle of March.

in Serbia one can't usually play outside till mid March as well, but this year is different, almost no winter in Belgrade, just a few snowy days, and you could play in January, but also now as well

regarding Serbian cup, it will be one more big derby in this season final, but I expect us to lose

As expected, cup semifinals delivered many surprising results. Despite it, in few countries we will have traditional finals like El Clasico in Spain and Panathinaikos - Olympiacos in Greece. Both Real and Barca left no chance completely for their opponents, I expected to see close games. Pao and Oly also reached final confidently.
In Germany Alba lost to Ulm, not sure that we can call it as big surprise, Ulm is German champions after all. They will face Bayern in final.
In France no Euroleague teams in the final. In semifinal Monaco lost to Paris in very close game. Will be very surprised if Paris leader TJ Shorts won't be signed by Euroleague team next season. So, we will have Paris - Nanterre in the final.
In Lithuania Zalgiris vs Lietkabelis in the final. My team Rytas failed to reach final 4 year in a row, 3rd time with same coach. I think it's best indicator that time for change already come...
In Italy Olimpia Milano reached final easy and they will face Napoli who won vs Reaggiana after overtime.
EDIT
Forgot Turkey, but nothing unexpected there - Efes vs Fenerbahche in the final.

Your fears weren't without a reason as Crvena Zvezda won in the final. Hard to tell something without watching game, just sorry for your team loss...

Yeah all over Europe there weren't many surprises. France with both EL teams busting out is the exception here.
I followed the Rytas game yesterday as well. Sure it was a surprise but their season is not as solid as usual.
Ulm winning versus ALBA is only a small upset, they have been a 3 point underdog only. Game was in Berlin though, never easy to win away from home.
Well, I'm glad when this weekend is over and the cups are gone.  ;D

Very limited amount of games, not so entertaining for me, haha.

Yeah, Rytas season isn't going well at all, but we are loosing against weaker teams on paper, I see potential in our squad. But with terrible BCL format we simply don't have enough serious games all season long, unlike in Eurocup and lack of experience hurts when it matters most.
Little correction, German final 4 was in Munich, not Berlin, where hosts Bayern beat Ulm in the final.
Biggest upset of weekend was in Italy where huge underdogs Napoli beat Milan in the final.

---

No interesting games this week as we have Eurobasket qualifiers, what is huge waste of time IMO. It's only strange that Euroleague made window for it, as previously national teams had to play without Euroleague players.

FIBA Eurobasket qualifiers are on the way and we have already seen a small surprise with Denmark beating Georgia at home. They were down double digit in the 3rd but rallied to come back and win the game.

Actually for me this was not SO surprising since of course Georgia has Shengaila and Shermandini, but that's almost about it.
Most of the players play in some small leagues, nothing worth mentioning. Denmark on the other hand has more international players, so I really thought they have a good chance, and they proved me right.

All other favorites that played yesterday (France, Serbia, Greece) won yesterday.
I am eager to see team Germany after winning the world cup last summer. Obviously they bring back a very changed team since all the NBA players are overseas. Hopefully they can start strong in Bulgaria. We beat Montenegro with ease at home but this is an away game. Now we are world number 3, we have to perform that way.  :P

Serbia won easily yesterday, and we are in that group with Denmark and Georgia

should be an easy pass for us in this group, especially since 3 teams are going further from 4 teams in the group
can't avoid to say that this qualifications are pretty meaningless on this format, where a lot of teams are passing into next stage, and most stars don't even play on these matches
NBA is playing along, and their stars are not even considered for this qualifications

Yeah, this qualification is almost meaningless. We have 4 teams in group and 3 of them directly qualify to Eurobasket and there is 4 teams who already qualified as hosts - Poland, Latvia, Finland and Cyprus. I don't understand why they play in this qualifers.
For the first time sine current format was introduced, we have Euroleague players available to play as Euroleague made a window in their tournament. So, at least we don't see B or C teams playing. Previously some big teams like Slovenia, Latvia or Croatia become victim of such format - they lost biggest stars and they don't have big pool of average level players to replace them. Outcome of this - failing to qualify to major tournaments.

So, Spain ends this window with 2 loses, Germany lost to Bulgaria, Lithuania to Estonia, but c'mon, what kind of basketball we have with results like 58-53 or 64-52.
Don't know how about you, but I hate that rules allow to hire random Anerican to play for national team like it would be club. Like Codi Miller - Mccintyre playing for Bulgaria or Zach Leday for Azerbaijan, it's just ridiculous.
Finally it's over, can't wait for Euroleague to see some proper basketball.

Yeah Germany really made a fool of themselves yesterday.
I don't know why they didn't use players from ALBA or Bayern. So strange. Not even 30 points in the first half. At that point I thought it can only get better, man how wrong I was, haha.
15-18 point dog Bulgaria showed us how minimalistic basketball can lead to a win, haha.

I am also not a fan of "buying players" and bringing them into the national team. I mean we also did this in the past with Chris Kaman and lately with Nick Weiler-Babb. But at least these guys have some German descent.

fully agree, and this is in full swing in basketball
when I saw South Sudan on WC, it was all american team

but, Euroleague is back to our plate tomorrow, and Partizan is a host to Efes, each game is important, but this one can put us down from play-off hopes, if we lose it
and we were in really bad shape prior to this break
hope to see a win in Arena tomorrow, odds are on our side, but Efes is rising lately

It's time the real international basketball is back.
This FIBA window was a snooze fest and outside of that there wasn't really something going on basketball wise (except NBA and NCAA of course).

Tonight there are also some Euroleague and Eurocup woman games which look quite interesting. Since the atmosphere is mostly quite nice in these games I might tune in for a bit.

Finally Euroleague is back, this break looked such long. Partizan - Efes sound interesting, it's like 2 points game because direct competitors is playing.
Barca - Monaco should be good one too.

I'm fine when player have somie ties with country that he represents. But when they sign random players who maybe can't even find that country on the map, it's complete joke.

match is in final moments, and Partizan is near a win over Efes, and probably over 100 points scored tonight
important win, hopefully there will not be some major surprise in last seconds, that gets us back into play-off race

on the other side, Efes is now pretty far from that fight, 2 wins at least, and there is not much games left
Maccabi already won over Alba, while Virtus is ahead over Valencia, and Real is surprisingly losing at home against PAO

If we're talking about play-in, being 2 games away still isn't mission impossible, but situation is complicated after you lose against direct competitor. Zalgiris is 2 wins away too, they didn't had chances against Olympiacos today, but I'm not sure that they had that much expectations to win this game.
What is a bit unexpected is Monaco win against Barca away. Seems that Monaco become most difficult opponent for Barca after Real recently. And Alba - they didn't lost, they were humiliated. It's justshameful to lose at home by 35 points...

Efes stormed Bayern at home, and they are now both on 16 loses
cheering for Zalgiris and Barcelona to take down Maccabi and Valencia, which would be helpful for Partizan in a play-in fight

Monaco won over Zvezda
Partizan is playing one more important match (all till the end are) tomorrow against Olimpia in Milano, and win would be great to seal Olimpia out, and improve our own chances to get in
according to bookies it is possible, and IMO it is 50/50

https://i.ibb.co/zZwCxQN/Efes.jpg (https://imgbb.com/)

I was at Sinan Erdem Sports Hall today to watch the Anadolu Efes - Bayern Munich match. This was one of the greatest performances I have ever seen from Anadolu Efes in the Euroleague this season.  :)  After some tension occurred on Bayern Munich side at the end of the first half they started to drop in performance a lot. It was so easy for Anadolu Efes to destroy them.

Tonight was absolutely the captain Larkin's night.  ;D  Such an amazing performance with 28 points! After opening the gap quite a lot Larkin just started to turn it into a great show to watch.

Zalgiris lost to Maccabi and if they still had dreams about playoffs, it's over.
Fenerbahche won against Real for the second time this season. And they did in confident way, something what you won't see in Madrid often.
Mike James become all time Euroleague top scorer with 4457 points and overtook Vassilis Spanoulis. Monaco achieved easy win against Crvena Zvezda.
About Olimpia - Partizan, Olimpia is such unpredictable team. Sometimes they play shit, but they're capable to beat almost anyone on good day.

Mike James' accomplishment is impressive and praiseworthy. He is still not too old and he accomplished this while played in the nba 1,5 seasons if I'm not mistaken. I respect him a lot.

Fenerbahce had a huge win in an away game. They managed to get Tavares into foul trouble early and Nigel and Calathes played great and Fener got a very important win. Fener lost to Red Star Belgrade two times this season when they beat Real also two times. It is rather interesting. Fener will regret immensely those losses to Red Star at the end. I wonder how the playoffs will be.

Mike James' accomplishment is impressive and praiseworthy. He is still not too old and he accomplished this while played in the nba 1,5 seasons if I'm not mistaken. I respect him a lot.

Fenerbahce had a huge win in an away game. They managed to get Tavares into foul trouble early and Nigel and Calathes played great and Fener got a very important win. Fener lost to Red Star Belgrade two times this season when they beat Real also two times. It is rather interesting. Fener will regret immensely those losses to Red Star at the end. I wonder how the playoffs will be.
[/quote]

Considering Mike James is not in Europe for THAT long that really is impressive!
Back when he was with Brooklyn in the NBA he was already showing what he can do, that's why I was surprised when he went to Europe.
Maybe he would have made more money in the US but over there he is just one of many. In Europe he is a star that can shine in the brightest light. Not to mention that Monaco is a great place to live at, with a lot of advantages tax wise, if you know what I mean.

Zalgiris didn't won against Maccabi, and probably lost all chances to get into top10 and play-in
but important win for Barca against Valencia, and Valencia is now on 15 loses, so Partizan have a chance to spare one lose against Olimpia tonight

our former player, Vesely had a lead against Valencia for Barca

will be intense tonight in Milano

For American 10 seasons in Euroleague is quite a lot. In all these years he become face of modern era Euroleague. Now he is 33 years old, so, probably he still have 2-3 seasons remaining. With such scoring averages it will be difficult to reach him for someone. Now only thing that he is missing is winning Euroleague.

It was so long time ago that I already forgot that. It looks that he spent eternity at Fenerbahche.

yeah, that was in previous Partizan Euroleague stage, prior to almost a decade break that we had
he was so young then, came almost as a teenager, and can't remember well, but I think he had a NBA episode after that
our coach at the time, Vujosevic, had a great sense to pick good and young players

back to tonight game, intense in Milano, looks as a close match till the end
although teams do play in series so far

It was close game until final seconds. Partizan had great chance to win game or send it to OT at least, but how you can make such poor attack after timeout. Leday goes with ball almost whole court and makes last shot. Especially when you have Punter on the court. And it's not first time this season, IIRC, there was game where Kaminsky had last shot and offcourse he missed it. Neither Kaminsky or Leday doesn't looks like players who you would like to see taking last shot.
This loss may cost a lot for Partizan.

Terrible day for Serbian clubs in Euroleague. Crvena Zvezda had huge lead against Maccabi, but they wasted it, 4th quarter was just action in one direction. While Partizan, it already looked that that they're in the game when difference was just 4 points. But then Barca run away and didn't looked back, 4th quarter result 8:20.
Fenerbahche destroyed Valencia 118:88 and made new Euroleague record with scoring 24 3-pointers. 72 points from 3-pointers, crazy.
Olympiacos showed some elite defence and won in Greek derby against Panathinaikos 71:65.

Partizan lost in Barcelona, it was not that bad as result is showing, but it was hard to expect a win there
and now we are in a group of 6 teams fighting for one spot in play-in, Efes facing Asvel tonight, so expected to stay on 16 loses, while Bayern can knock Zalgiris and stay on the same level as well
that would probably send Zalgiris out of this fight

will be a tough call to pass into play-off, 5 games to go

Man, this Zvezda game was so weak. Such a nice lead and then a total collapse! In an away game this can happen, but at home this is unacceptable I think.
The passionate Serbian fans must have been pissed, haha.

I watched the Fener game, what an offensive explosion. We all know it's harder in the Euroleague to score than in the NBA but 118 points, in only 40 minutes, that's a statement.

At the moment we must consider Fener one of the strongest teams in Europe. They whooped Real Madrid in Madrid, destroyed @ Anadolu Efes and against Baskonia. Domestically they also have great performances lately, wiping the floor with their opponents, haha.
There are 5 more games to play, if they keep it up and Barcelona/Monaco have some slip ups they might go as high as 2nd place, which would give them home court until the final 4.

Efes are still trying to jump into play in and they started double week with a win against Olympiacos and ejected Bartzokas. Now they're 1 win away from 10th place.
Partizan got important win against Baskonia which keeps them in 10th place. Zalgiris got easy win against Virtus, but IMO, it's difficult to consider them as serious contender for 10th place as they wasted too much already.

It's never over until it's over.  ;D
There are still a couple of games to play so getting into the 10th place or better is surely more than possible.
Recently they showed some improvement so I am sure Efes is one of the candidates to jump into the post season.

ALBA had a good fight but yet again fell apart in the 2nd half of the game.
I wonder why they almost never can get a whole 40min of solid play together. Upsetting Real would have been fun, haha. They were like a 12-14 point underdog but still had a 1 point lead midway through the 4th quarter .
In the 3rd they were leading by as many as 13 and then the ALBA effect came into play, going from +13 to -4 within 5-6 minutes, classic.

Fenerbahçe completely dominated the game against Barcelona in the first half. The gap increased to like 25 points in the second quarter (40-15). The second quarter ended up with Fenerbahçe's 46-25 lead. As Barcelona won the first match played between them by 8 points it is very important for Fenerbahçe to win by at least 9 points tonight.

It looked that Fenerbahche will blow up Barca completely, but they had awful 3rd quarter which let Barcelona to return to the game. In 4th quarter they were solid again and achieved win by 14 points.
What really surprised me is Monaco loss to Olimpia Milano by 18 points at home. Olimpia is most inconsistent team in Euroleague, they can beat anyone and lose to anyone. But with this win they're still in race for 10th place.

In my opinion the Fener win was no surprise at all.
After the domination they showed in the past week Barcelona was just another stepping stone the easily got out of the way.
It's impressive what they are showing at the moment, even though of course they looked a bit troubled in the 3rd quarter.  ;D

I thought about betting on them big   but then the game started so late in my time zone, that's why I didn't.
You could get odd as high as 1.5 for a Fenerbahce win, a true present I think.

After our agreement with Šarūnas Jasikevičius Fenerbahçe's basketball level has really gone up. Despite playing the 3rd quarter very badly Fenerbahçe still managed to win the match by 14 points thanks to a great 4th quarter performance and took a big step to finish the regular season in top 4. After the Olympiacos win Anadolu Efes managed to win against Alba Berlin home despite having difficulties and maintained their claim for 10th place by doing double on the double match week.

Fenerbahce was the superior team at the start of the game and in the first half, both physically and in terms of ball sharing. However, the problem for Barcelona is that they are not aware of their mistakes. Barcelona was ineffective against Fenerbahce in the first half and their inability to convert the open shots into points was one of the reasons for the score difference in the first half.

Honestly, I didn't think Barcelona would be so ineffective. It was surprising that Barcelona relied on Ricky Rubio for a good part of the game, who is still recovering from his mental problems and needs time. The critical moment of the match was the intentional foul on Kalinic. The game was completely in Fenerbahce's favor after this foul. Congratulations to Saras and the team for Fenerbahce's successful result.

I thought Anadolu Efes' chance ran out already after the ASVEL loss.  ;D  I would really like to see them joining play-in phase but their job is really difficult at this point. There are multiple teams fighting for the last quota. If Valencia win today they will obtain a good advantage. But their job isn't easy at all against Monaco away.

Turkish teams were really successful in the Euroleague until the 2022/2023 season. But we couldn't see any of them in Final Four last season.

This season I give only Fenerbahçe a chance for making it there even if Anadolu Efes qualify for play-in.

Fenerbahche wasn't bad under Itoudis, but Jasikevicius moved team to new level. Before I didn't considered as big Final 4 contender, now I changed my mind. Today they have match with Olimpia Milano, very tricky opponent.

After Efes wasted so much in first part of season, it's good thing that they're still in fight until final rounds. That Jones block against ASVEL in the end was crazy and gave huge relief to Efes fans. Few remaining rounds
Now after 2 wins against Virtus and Baskonia even Zalgiris keep their minimal hope alive.

It was a heartbreaking loss for us. If we won tonight we were going to go up to 2nd place. Even though we got 17 points behind against Milano today we made a very big comeback. However in the last moments of the match we couldn't especially benefit from free 3-pointers with Wilbekin and we lost. I hope that this loss doesn't push us out of top 4.

Zalgiris Kaunas vs Olimpia Milano
Two teams that had a very good double match week will face each other. Zalgiris Kaunas had different victories at home against Virtus Bologna and Baskonia. Evans again stands out as the one who carries his team forward. Milano, on the other hand, first won in Monaco and then at home against Fenerbahce Beko, with a hard fought win even though the score difference was widening at times.

For Milano, the win against Fenerbahce Beko was a critical threshold. Milano has 14 wins and is currently inside the play-in threshold. Zalgiris has 13 wins. If Milano loses this game, it would mean the end of their chances. Therefore, Milano will have an aggressive game plan and will play a good offensive game. Also, with the return of Mirotic, Milano has a much stronger offensive line. My favorite is Milano.

Why are all guys here just talk about the Euroleague?  ;D

Aside the local competitions which slowly go on the final stretch of the season there are also other amazing cups to follow.

Chemnitz for example, which play a surprisingly great season in Germany competing with teams like ALBA and Bayern for the top spot had their first semi final in the FIBA Europe Cup yesterday playing @ Bilbao and pretty much destroying them by 25 points after being down by as many as 14 points mid way through the 2nd quarter.

What a great game and 2nd half where they outscored Bilbao 57:27, haha. In an away game at a Spanish club, even when it's just Bilbao, that's a statement!
Bilbao some days earlier beat EL team Baskonia at home by the way.

Few very important games for playin spots tonight. Zalgiris playing with Olimpia and leading a bit after 3 quarters. According to Basketnews calculation, Zalgiris chances for playin is just 0.2%, but they can ruin situation for Milan:
https://m.basketnews.com/news-203858-battle-for-last-place-in-the-play-in-whose-chances-are-the-best.html
Put some money on Partizan and Baskonia tonight.

I admit that I barely watch other European cups besides Euroleague and Eurocup. Used to watch Champions league until my team dropped out. But will turn in Final 4.
Seems that Germany almost every season have underdog that surprises everyone. Last year it was Ulm who won Bundesliga, or Bonn who had amazing squad last year and won BCL. This year we have Chemnitz. Chemnitz - Varese would be great final, but Varese still have to do their job in 2nd leg.

That's true. In recent years very unexpected teams from Germany performed well.
Bonn with the BCL win last year and going into the playoffs in Germany as the clear number 1 seat just to get upset by Ulm which then also won the title.
If you bet on them before the season you can make very good money.
This season with Chemnitz is even more surprising cause they are only in the first league in Germany for a couple of years.

Everybody always expects the big teams like Alba and Bayern to win it all because they have the big names and a lot of money. But good scouting is just as important as a big wallet.

Fenerbahçe are the most in form team in the Euroleague now. And I think that we will qualify for final four even if we don't have a home advantage in play-offs. Today we destroyed Alba Berlin.Nigel Hayes broke the point record in the Euroleague by the 50 points he scored. After coming to Fenerbahçe Nigel Hayes' development is also really extraordinary.

https://talkimg.com/images/2024/03/29/VGPL1.md.png (https://talkimg.com/image/VGPL1)


https://x.com/BasketNews_com/status/1773796076933275747

Yesterday was full of interesting results between teams fighting for playin spots. Baskonia at home was destroyed by Efes. I don't knowwhat happened to Baskonia, it was hard to recognize them, maybe Efes just needed this win more.
It looked that Partizan control game against Olympiacos, but what happened in 4th quarter is crazy. Oly made big comeback by winning it 10:28 and made Stark arena completely silent. While Bayern after loss to Barca is 99.9% eliminated.

---

Meanwhile in Eurocup semifinals Besiktas made series with Bourg tied 1:1, decisive game next week in France. Now other semifinal London Lions - Paris is in play, Paris leads series 1:0 and now in 2nd quarter we have close game. One of these 4 teams will play in Euroleague next season, but now I can see them compeing only with Alba and ASVEL, Euroleague is different level after all.

Fenerbahche is hottest team in Euroleague now, I hope they will keep their form in playoffs too. And damn, what a night for Hayes-Davis, never thought that he can make such record, you would expect such performances from Mike James type of player. Amazing.

Beşiktaş won at home in the EuroCup to make the series 1-1 and extended the series to the last game. I think Beşiktaş will win this time in Bourg Basket's home in France and reach the final. They deserve a trophy this year, they are fighting very well. Dušan Alimpijević brought a completely different atmosphere to the team. Even if the roster quality is not top-notch, he is tactically very good and everyone is playing above their level. I hope they win something this year.

Beşiktaş fans absolutely deserve to be in the Euroleague. The new president of Beşiktaş is an old basketball player and he said when he was a candidate that he would do his best to carry the team to the Euroleague. Even if they don't win the Eurocup maybe they can play in the Euroleague with an invitation next year. Frankly when we think that the Turkish Basketball League is one of the most quality leagues in Europe I don't think it is fair to join the Euroleague with only 2 teams.

I think that Turkish league is 2nd best in Europe after Spanish ACB. I agree that they deserve to have more than 2 teams in Euroleague, but I think it's impossible to see Besiktas in Euroleague without winning Eurocup. I doubt that Euroleague wants to see 3 teams from same city, they're not already happy with 2 teams from Belgrade in Euroleague. And Besiktas had not high attendance during whole season, they only moved to bigger arena for playoffs.
Meanwhile Paris won 2nd game against London Lions and goes to Eurocup final.

If Beşiktaş qualify for the Euroleague I'm pretty sure that their stadium is going to be full in every game. I agree with you on the 3 teams from the same city topic. However when we think that the population of Istanbul is nearly 20 million maybe Euroleague board can act more flexible about this topic.

Yeah 3 teams from the same city doesn't make too much sense.
Sure the Turkish fan base of every team is always strong and guarantees a great atmosphere but still it's a bit off.

I would also agree that the Turkish league is the strongest league behind the ACB at the moment. Before it was the VTB with CSKA, Unics, St. Petersburg and others because they paid a lot of money. But since Russian teams are banned from international competition the quality of the league declined drastically.

Yeah, Istanbul is one of biggest cities in the world and probably half of Turkish league teams located in this city. And I remember Turkey previously had 3 or even 4 teams in Euroleague, it was Galtasaray, Darussafaka or Pinar Karsiyaka.

While it looks that Euroleague now is looking for expansion to the Middle East and adding team from Dubai. Offcourse, it's all about the money and I'm not big fan of such expansion. First, this team most likely won't get much interest from locals and all teams would get one extra long trip to Dubai.

I absolutely have the same idea. However as basketball absolutely needs new sources financially I wouldn't oppose to this move. I think that one of the most reasonable solutions is that final four matches to be played in Dubai or another Middle East country.

The only thing that I want to say is that the Turkish league has a right to be represented by more than 2 teams. But I don't know what would happen about this topic next season. For now the biggest candidate to join as the 3rd team looks like Beşiktaş.

Lack of money is actually probably main issue in Euroleague. Offcourse, it's impossible to compete with football, but still, things like TV contracts, sponsorships, prize money is ridiculously low in Euroleague. When NBA bench warmer is getting more money than Euroleague stars, it's getting hard to attract good players.
Besiktas isn't very stable team, now it looks ok, but just last season there was some big delays with paying salaries that some players even left team. And now it seems that Bourg is closer to Eurocup final, leading in 4th quarter of decisive game. But yeah, I agree about that 2 Turkish clubs in Euroleague isn't enough.

I absolutely agree with you on this topic. I also think that an invitation should be given for only 1 season already. For teams to make more money the interest in basketball in Europe should increase more. Germany is quite good about this topic. They have started to fill stadiums in every match. They have got amazing achievements at national team level also in the recent years.

We have two more teams eliminated from play-in race - Zalgiris and Valencia is out after loses tonight. WTF happened to Valencia? You have decisive game against one of weakest Euroleague teams ASVEL. And then you lose game by more than 20 points. At one moment they were down by 39 points. How it's even possible.
Zalgiris lost to Monaco, but even after that they had tiny chances remaining. But after Partizan win against Alba they're officially out.

Fenerbahce Beko vs Anadolu Efes
Two Turkish teams will face each other in the Euroleague. Fenerbahce Beko is aiming to be in the top four and has been performing well in the last Euroleague games. Jasikevicius is a genius and despite the fact that Fenerbahce doesn't have the best roster, he is getting the best out of the team. Fenerbahce is the most productive team in the Euroleague and that's thanks to Jasikevicius.

For Anadolu Efes, this game could be an opportunity. Efes will definitely want to win this game after a week in which their play-in rivals lost. Fenerbahce Beko is a team that uses its home court advantage very well. Anadolu Efes can have problems on defense at times and Fenerbahce can take advantage of that. With fan support and home court advantage, I expect a win for Fenerbahce Beko.

29 point home loss in this type of do or die game, against the 2nd weakest team in the league, is just a disgrace. There are no other words for that.
It's funny how close all the teams on the top of the table are this season. Real of course is not included in this.  ;D
But 2nd to 6th place are just separated by 1 win. Shows how competitive this season is.

Excited for the playoffs. If Fener keeps this way of playing up I see them in the final 4. The past weeks have really been strong for them!!

While Fenerbahçe had the chance to push Anadolu Efes out of the tournament they couldn't took advantage of it. In the last moments of the last quarter Rodrigue Beaubois' two three-pointers were very critical. In my opinion the main reason of Fenerbahçe's losing the match was having so many turnovers. Anadolu Efes has a potential to make more surprises with the squad it has.

It was such great match to watch. Agree that turnovers was main factor, but I think it was caused by that this game didn't had much importance for Fenerbahche, while for Efes it was do or die game. And now they have everything in their hands, they just need to beat Cvena Zvezda on final round and they don't have to look at other results. Few months ago it was difficultto see such scenario.

Nothing surprising that coach Mumbru was sacked after such fiasco.
Real is on another level, bt I remind fact that in current format Euroleague regular season winner never won Euroleague. Maybe this year historey will be rewritten. Today they lost to Baskonia. It was crucial game for Baskonia, while Real is preparing for El Clasico in ACB league.

Oh wow.
I didn't even know Mumbru was coaching now, haha. I don't follow every team in the EL.
Now I am feeling old, I even remember when he was in his prime as a basketball player and representing team Spain.

With 12 assists and 15 turnovers, it's surprising that fenerbahce still managed to bring the game to the point where they had to take the last shot. Normally fenerbahce has a pure, playmaking point guard like calathes, but efes had a 19-12 advantage in assists. Calathes had 3 assists, while someone like clyburn who is used to playing as an individual had 4, a guard like larkin whose main job is shooting had 5, and another shooter like rodrigue had 4.

This might show Fenerbahce's possible struggle in the playoffs. They need to figure this out if they want to achieve something. Because this game as an Istanbul derby was intense as usual, an indicator for playoffs IMO.

I don't agree that Fenerbahçe didn't care about this match. The relationship between these two teams hasn't been good in the recent years. Fenerbahçe wanted to maintain their top 4 chance at the same time. Anadolu Efes started to play at another level after parting their ways with the coach Erdem Can. And they captured another chance in a season that looked finished for them first.

I also remember his prime as player and even then he already looked old :D. He become legend of Bilbao Basket and after retiring he become coach of that them and already on first season he helped to return his team to ACB league from 2nd division.

Not saying that Fenerbahche didn't cared about this game, I'm just saying that importance of this game was much higher for Efes as it was do or die for them. Agree that after they changed coach we see different face of Efes. But I think it's important to mention how many injuries they had back then, while now they have basically all their best players available.
Fenerbahche and Efes will paly again on Monday in Turkish league where they're still fighting to become winners of regular season and get home court advantage in the final.

Yesterday first game of Eurocup final between Paris and Bourg was played where favorites Paris achieved comfortable win. And I expect that they will lift trophy after 2nd game. Bourg looks like big underdog against them who already went above all expectations.
Final round of regular season in Euroleague starts today. Efes have most comfortable situation as they only need to beat Crvena Zvezda at home to reach playin. If they will, rest of games will be irrelevant. It will be one of extremely rare cases when Partizan fans will support Crvena Zvezda :D

Yeess, there is a short time left for the last games regarding 10th place to start.  ;D  When I thought like everything was over for Anadolu Efes they were reborn from their ashes. Because of their 4-win streak they are the closest team to finishing in this place now.

Honestly I have 0 doubt about Anadolu Efes to do this work. They are going to play against Crvena zvezda which don't have any hope left. I expect even a huge win by Anadolu Efes to send a message to their competitors in play-in stage.  ;)

It will be really nice to see these 2 Turkish teams in later stages. I have missed their times with Euroleague championships already...  ::)

Anadolu Efes vs Crvena Zvezda
Anadolu Efes has won eleven of the last twelve official games and they have been performing well lately. With these good results and the rising quality of its play, Anadolu Efes has reached as high as 9th place in this organization. In this year of ups and downs for Anadolu Efes, qualifying for the playoffs will be an important achievement for them. If Efes defeats their opponent, they will move on regardless of the results of the other teams. Crvena Zvezda no longer has a claim in this organization and their main target now is the Adriatic League. Therefore, they might suffer from a lack of concentration in this match. Anadolu Efes is the favored side. Efes, with the support of its fans, will start the game well and will be the favorite.

I expected that Efes will get comfortable win, but damn, blowout by 45 points is just brutal. After loss to ASVEL, Efese chances were complicated, but with 5 wins in a row they're hottest team in Euroleague now and playin isn't the limit for them.
This result eliminates Olimpia and Partizan. Well, Milan eliminated themslves by losing to Maccabi. And Partizan, I sympathize to this team a bit, but this season they don't remind team that they had last year

Not a big surprise that Paris took that win.
They have been dominant the whole season, not only in Europe but also in France.
Not a big surprise though as they got all the players of last year's Bonn team that took the Eurocup before.

They have a bright future ahead of them, maybe at some point they will take the Euroleague spot from ASVEL, who knows.

I was thinking before the match that Anadolu Efes would win comfortably but I wasn't also expecting this much difference. It was an embarrassing score for Crvena zvezda. Fenerbahçe and Olympiacos are playing a match for the 5th place now and it is overtime now. Both teams look like they want to win. However I think that the losing side of this match is more advantageous for final four.

Yesterday they won 2nd game, it was more difficult, but they controlled it. They were best in Eurocup and they proved it. It's quite unique story when you buy all best players and coach from one team and in this way they won 2 different European tournaments in 2 seasons. Interesting which team they're going to replace in Euroleague, probably it will be Valencia or Crvena Zvezda.

Yeah, maybe it's better to get Monaco in series than Barcelona, but it didn't looked that both teams were thinking about that
So, regular season is over, next week we will have play-in tournament and then most fun part - playoffs will begin.

I have been thinking for years that it is going to be fairer to have a play-off system like the one in NBA instead of final four. I'm of opinion that it isn't fair in terms of basketball to determine the champion by a single match. Anyway I'm going to be at the stadium tomorrow to support Anadolu Efes. When we look at the form graph of both teams recently I think that it will be an easy match for Anadolu Efes.

Same here. I never understand the reason for a final four. Sure it's a nice weekend but it takes away the effort from the best teams in the regular season.
Normally you fight for home court advantage but with a final four the best teams have this advantage only in 1 round, after that it's the final four already and only the host of it might have home court advantage.

Normally Euroleague is all about money, as we have seen before with plans expanding to Dubai and so on, more games make more money than just 4 games at the final 4 weekend. Strange.

Play-in start today and with their current form Efes looks like heavy favorite against Virtus. 1.22 odds isn't worth to bet. Virtus isn't same team like they were in 1st part of season, but it's just one game and everything could happen.
Maccabi - Baskonia, here Maccabi is favorite, Baskonia isn't very consistent, but wouldn't be that much surprised if they will win.

Agree with about Final 4. Underdog wins is fun thing, but I think it's unfair that whole season efforts can be taken away in signle game. But Euroleague isn't changing format because they wouldn't earn almost anything from semifinal and final series, while they're making good money from final 4 tickets and local sponsors who support event.

I was thinking that Anadolu Efes would get a comfortable win today however I was wrong. Despite Clyburn's legendary start in the first quarter they left the match with a 64-67 loss. After Clyburn's entering the match very well the team forgot him for some reason. Clyburn who scored 17 points in the first quarter completed the match with only 22 points which is really hard to believe.I still think that the actual reason why Anadolu Efes lost the match was their not being able to get contribution from their tall players. Oturu and Jones were terrible today.

https://talkimg.com/images/2024/04/16/jYamW.png

I can only imagine this must have been a very disappointing game yesterday.
64 points in a do or die game at home is just very weak. Sure Bologna is no easy stepping stone but still, they lost their last 8 away games in the Euroleague and were just 5-12 away this season.
Efes on the other hand was 13 -4 at home, so normally everybody would think they are a huge favourite in this matchup against Virtus.

Well, everything is possible, season is over for Efes now. That went quick.

It was quite difficult to recognize Efes yesterday. Things started well for them, but then scoring 13-14 points in remaining 3 quarters is something awful. Virtus before were terrible away, their last win was more than 4 months ago, and in general, their winning pace in 2nd part of season was similar like Alba or ASVEL had. But as I said, it's just one game and everything could happen. Feel sorry for Efes after they made such crazy run in end of regular season.
Maccabi just destroyed Baskonia and now will face Virtus on Friday for the last spot. Should be interesting.

Virtus made a huge win that gives them hope to reach the play offs. They played good through out the entire season and last 7-8 matches in the euroleague they were down in form and start losing but i think they found it against Efes and if they play in the next match like this i think they can reach the playoffs. But didnt expect Efes to lose at home at all against Virtus.

Baskonia vs Virtus Bologna
Baskonia lost to Tel-Aviv in the Play-in round. Virtus Bologna, on the other hand, managed to defeat Anadolu Efes despite a lack of good offensive organization. Virtus Bologna thus qualified to play in this round for the last ticket to the Play-Offs. In the regular season games between the two teams, the away team had the advantage, but I think this time the situation will change. The Howard factor will make the difference for Baskonia. Considering the fan support and home court advantage, Baskonia is the favorite to win.

Now we know all teams which will play in in Euroleague Playoffs - Baskonia claims last spot after beating Virtus. It was equal game for 2 quarters, but after halftime Baskoia played impressive 3rd quarter and didn't looked back after it. They didn't had Moneke tonight because of injury, but it wasn't a problem - Howard and Costello played great game, captain Sedekerskis played almost without substitutions and had big role in win too.
Playoffs will begin on Tuesday already.

Baskonia managed to be the last team to qualify for play-offs by defeating Virtus. What are your predictions about the play-off matchups?

https://talkimg.com/images/2024/04/19/jogoC.md.png (https://talkimg.com/image/jogoC)


My predictions were like above. I'm not objective because of being a Fenerbahçe fan. I think that Real Madrid are going to be the champions again this year. I think that the winner of the Monaco-Fenerbahçe matchup is going to reach the finale.

I pretty much see it the same way as you.
There are big favourites to survive this round and honestly I don't see any of the underdogs to beat one of them in a best of 5 series.
Monaco vs Fener surely is the closest game in the 1st round but for some reason I don't see Monaco beating Fenerbahce. In recent months Fener got really strong again so I also have them on the radar for the final.

I agree with @CLS63 predictions, but I see playoff series a bit differentely. For me only Real is favorite which don't give any doubts, but still, I expect Baskonia to win at least one game. While other series, I wouldn't be surprised if all 5 games will be needed. Fenerbahche recently didn't looked so confident with some defeats both in Euroleague and Turkish league, it increase Monaco chances. Panathinaikos - Maccabi should be quite epic, and I don't even call PAO as favorite, it's 50/50 for me. I just remind that Maccabi won both games in regular season.
I also see Real becoming champions, only thing that can stop them is nature of Final 4 format and potentially one bad game there.

Euroleague playoffs started with a bit unexpected Maccabi win at OAKA arena against Panathinaikos. It looked that PAO controls the game, but not sure what happened to them in 4th quarter where Maccabi made a comeback. Unfortunately, saw 4th quarter only partially because of problems with internet... Now main question is Baldwin injury, how serious it is.
Real dominating against Baskonia, whole 4th quarter is remainining, but difficult to expect comeback here.
Monaco - Fenerbahche and Barcelona - Olympiacos starts tomorrow.

Really a weak finish to the game by Pana, quite disappointing I must admit, and unexpected.
Real beating up Baskonia on the other hand was not the biggest of surprises.

By the way, I totally missed that in Germany, Bayern lost at super weak team Heidelberg last weekend, it's hilarious. This self proclaimed best team in Germany losing against a team of this caliber is just such a joke. I read yesterday they will try to make a noe contract with Serge Ibaka (for whatever reasons) but apparently many top teams in Europe, recently Partizan also entered the teams pursuing him, are trying to get him under contract as well.

Panathinaikos's result was indeed unexpected. They lost to maccabi twice this year before. This was the third time. Somehow maccabi has become pana's nemesis. And the interesting thing is that they always lose in the last periods. Last game was the same, it ended 17-28. But Ergin Ataman made a comment interestingly, saying he promises they will be in Final Four this year, otherwise he will not be coaching PAO next year. I think he made a bluff to wake up the team, which means he took a big risk. Either the players will make a real difference and somehow make it to the final four or their adventure with Ataman will end.

Going a bit down in European cup basketball, Germany's Chemitz NINERS won the FIBA Europe cup last night with a nice overtime win at Bahcesehir College.

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/04/25/rUGOG.png

They had it all going for them after winning the home game by 11 and were down by 2 with 4min to go but then the home tem made a final push and seconds before the end tied the game and sent it into overtime.

OT also was a thriller with Chemnitz coming back from some points behind.

They are really a big success story from Germany right now. All season long they have been in the top 3 of the league challenging the rich monsters of ALBA and Bayern Munich. SO proud of them and hopefully they continue going this path. Some years ago they were still in the 2nd tier league in Germany and see where they are now.

Panathinaikos couldn't stop their opponent's streak in the last period and Maccabi won the first game of the series. Maccabi managed to beat Panathinaikos twice in the regular season and started the quarterfinal round with a win. In the first game, Panathinaikos paid the price for simple mistakes due to overconfidence and especially for being weak on defense. However, I can say that in this game we will see a much more determined Panathinaikos with a much tougher defense.

Coach Ataman promised to lead his team to the Final Four. Otherwise, coach Ataman said that he won't be at Pana next season. Therefore, they have no choice but to win on their way to the Final-Four. Maccabi is a dangerous team and if Pana takes this game seriously, they will be close to winning at home.

If you really have to spam our thread with your nonsense game recaps, at least do it for recent games.
The game you are writing about was has ended like 36 hours ago. Last night's game were Monaco vs Fenerbahce and Barcelona vs Olympiacos.

I created this thread for lovers of European basketball and I really would like to keep this thread free from useless posts that are only signature campaign spam.

I lost my bet on Monaco. I think Fenerbahce got a surprising win. I tried to watch the first games of the play-offs as much as possible and the first thing I see is that something is missing. At this time of the year there would be an atmosphere where the teams were playing chess with each other. But as of the first games we could only see the coach's signature reflected on the court in the Monaco - Fenerbahce game with Saras playing without the number 5 as a solution to the narrowed rotation and the shortage of big men. Maybe the fact that the old school coaches are out of the play-offs this time may have something to do with it. Neither Obradovic, nor Messina, nor Pablo Laso are in the last eight. It was also interesting that the away teams stole games in three of the four series.

Panathinaikos tied series with Maccabi and now it goes to Belgrade. 1st half was some ups and downs, Maccabi dominating in 1st quarter and then PAO respondin in 2nd. In general, Panathinaikos looked better, but in 4th quarter there was moment when it looked that they can collapse. But it didn't happened. Career night of Sloukas and Papapetrou becoming unexpected X factor.
Baskonia tried their best, they were close to Real significant part of game, but eventually Real run away. Simply different level.

Too bad that you didn't made this as self-moderated topic, but I guess that if such posts aren't often, it's not big issue.

It was really close from the first leg already.  :)  I didn't like our performance against Monaco in the first half but especially thanks to our third quarter performance we managed to come back and even win by OT. Starting by a win without court advantage is really valuable for us. However the second game is tomorrow and I have a bad feeling about it that we will lose this time.  :P

Monaco had a better regular season period than us. So it would still be a nice start even if it comes to 1-1 before the court advantage passes to us.

Barcelona - Olympiacos and Monaco - Fenerbahche both series is tied 1:1. You couldn't ask anything better from playoffs.
After halftime it looked that Monaco have no chance to win, their 3rd quarter was so poor, but 4th quarter was already complete opposite. Would be very surprised if this series will end before game 5 because we see fight of same level teams.
Barcelona - Olympiacos, today we already saw different kind of energy and intensity from Barca than in Game 1. They showed some elite defence tonight.

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Does anyone follow BCL Final 4? Both semifinals were great, but favorites Tenerife and Unicaja won. But for me it doesn't makes sense, why they make Final 4 in Belgrade when there is 3 Spanish and 1 Greek teams is playing and nothing what could be interesting for locals.

Well the final four location is decided before the season even starts, at least that's what I think.

The last 2 years the final 4 was hosted in Spain ( Bilbao and Malaga ) so it's obvious they can't bring it back to Spain for the 3rd year in a row.  :D

Anyway, just watched the recaps of the games and to be honest, they were not too exciting, haha. Both the favourites won so, that's what it is. We will see a battle of the Spanish "best of the rest" in this one.

Nope, it was actually decided just about month ago, so, such location is even more strange:
https://www.eurohoops.net/en/fiba-champions-league/1647806/basketball-champions-league-final-four-2024-belgrade-serbia/
Back to the basketball, it's getting boring that this tournament is dominated by mediacore (with all respect) Spanish teams. In the final I will support Unicaja, it would be their 1st trophy. On the other hand, you can't not love Marcelinho Huertas who being 40 years old become MVP of whole tournament.

Euroleague playoffs is back to action with 3rd games of series. Maccabi continue to play without Baldwin, but so far it wasn't big problem. It was another great game, it looked that Maccabi can win easier as they were leadingalmost whole game, but in the end PAO made comeback. Despite it, Maccabi survived and lead series 2:1
Didn't saw much from Olympiacos - Barcelona game as my attention was on UCL semifinal. It was another very close game. It's incredible how Barca survived in 4th quarter after Olympiacos run, mainly with Abrines 3-pointers. And then in overtime Oly lost game in most stupid possible way - foul on last second. I think it may be crucial game in series.

Yeah these 2 games were wild.
Maccabi was up big midway through the 3rd quarter and when I checked again some minutes later is was suddenly a 6 or 8 point game. Anyway, they managed to win so now they really have it in their own hands. Wouldn't be surprised though if Pana would have a strong response in game 4.

About Olympiacos vs Barcelona, I was surprised Oly was favored this much. Sure they have a stacked roster this season but still, Barcelona shouldn't be underestimated as well. And we have seen why.
So both Greek teams are down 2:1 now, it's gonna need a lot of fight to turn these series around.

In the first two games of the series, Fenerbahce Beko executed the strategy they wanted and took the court advantage. In fact, if they had paid attention to small details in the last period of the second game, they would have won the second game as well. With two games in a row at home, Fenerbahce is close to reaching the Final-Four.
Fenerbahce can use Motley, who didn't play in the first two games, in these games with the home court and crowd advantage, but his status will be known at game time. In Game 2, Monaco's John Brown suffered an injury and his status will be clarified at game time. Fenerbahce has let its opponents off the hook with its effective defense in many games at home this season and this time, unlike the first two games, I think it will be the team that will win with a good start. The team in yellow and blue is the team that is close to the Final-Four.

https://talkimg.com/images/2024/05/01/rE5bH.png

We did it!  :)  We managed to win home in Game 3 to lead the series by 2-1. As we are the seeded team we have a valuable advantage in our hands from now on. Even if this series extends to Game 5 I believe in my team to defeat Monaco to reach Final Four stage.

By the way I must say that I'm surprised with Maccabi Tel Aviv's performance so far. Despite Panathinaikos' much better regular season performance we can't see the same impact in this series. Maccabi Tel Aviv are only 1 win away from winning the series.

Oh, I already thought that Baskonia can win this game and not end series 3:0. But Real is Real, similar like in football. It was enough for them to play 1.5 good quarters to win game and reach Final 4 in shortest possible way.

Congrats! Even tough 78 points doesn't looks something special, this game was about defense. It's one of lowest scoring games for Monaco this season. When Monaco made a run in 4th quarter, Fenerbahche managed to respond. And finally, at least one game without any contraversies, unlike yesterday

I had a discussion with a colleague the other day about Euroleague and how uneventful it is. Let me explain...
He claimed that since it's a closed league, it's in their interest to participate in some minor match fixing so they earn more from tv rights and licenses. For example, with matches at this stage running at a best of three, if any team was to win within the first three matches, it would have left the last two matches never played with their opponent already knocked out.

So, at the stage where matches are a best of three, we see teams go head to head with each other and appear to win just barely enough so it seems believable that they might lose next match. This is a very different story to what we normally see on competitive leagues that aren't seeded from a closed list like Euroleague is. Do you think this accusation makes sense?

Of course this isn't the outright match fixing like we see it in football where teams can also determine the exact score, but rather only who wins certain matches. The rest of the league might very well be legit because certain matches in a best of three don't make a difference, they can just decide who wins/loses for two matches based on the first two and still keep the rest competitive. Maybe it's true but will we ever really know.

Wow, it's unexpected that Olympiacos destroyed Barcelona so easy when previous games were so close. 17-0 run in 1st half decided game and it looked that Barca gave up early, already thinking about Game 5.
We will have game 5 between Panathinaikos and Maccabi too. In 4th quarter there was moment when it looked that Maccabi controls the game and will win this series. But in the end, PAO took control over and won the game.
Euroleague playoffs couldn't be better than this. Now we only need Game 5 between Monaco and Fenerbahche.

I don't want to believe in similar conspiracy theories. And AFAIK, money from TV rights doesn't belongs on how many games they play, they have fixed contracts

That hardcore win by Olympiacos is just huge and now anything can happen in game 5 and their confidence must be huge after this heavy win. Panathiankos same with game 5 and i think they will win at home and go to the final 4. While the Oly vs Bar match anything can happen. This season we have some intresting matchups in the playoffs and cant wait to see the results of the game 5

Barca really was a disgrace after the 1st quarter.
I mean really, just scoring 35 points in 30 minutes after scoring 23 in the first 10min is beyond crazy. The stats for this game also are quite crazy. You would think the winning team get way more shots off, or more free throws, or less turnovers, but no.
They both shot 65 shots and Olympiakos even had 1 more turnover in this game, AND 6 less free throws .

The stat of the game though for me the the free throw % by Barcelona, shooting 7/17, hahaha.
If you can't even make these how do you want to be competitive.

Now it's a deciding game 5 in Barcelona, guess it's an even matchup for this on.

Fenerbahce Beko had a great performance against Monaco in the last game and did a great job both on offense and defense. With these results, Fenerbahce is now 2-1 in Game 3 of the series. Fenerbahce is the closest team to the Final-Four with Game 4 to be played today.

Guduric's expected contribution to the team, Calathes good play throughout the series, Biberovic and Wilbekin's shooting contributions at critical moments were the factors that led to the win. The Yellow Navy team is the favorite in this match with a huge fan support on its home court. The advantage of being in front, the support of the fans, the pressure on the opponent and the success in the last three games will make Monaco's guard drop. Fenerbahce will have the upper hand especially in the first half and will win the game. Thus, they will welcome back the Final-Four after a five year hiatus.

Another series reached Game 5 Tonight we saw another great playoff game. It was very low scoring game, but that's true beauty of playoffs. Such defensive game is something what Fenerbahche preferred, but Monaco won even without playing their typical basketball.
Sad that such great game was ruined by accident in the end. Fenerbahche fans attacked Monaco players. It wasn't  shown on TV what exactly happened, but it looks that Monaco players aren't saint too as they allegedly provoked fans.
https://twitter.com/BasketNews_com/status/1786482732433920144

Of course there is no justification about fans attacking the players no matter what. It was just a barbaric act. Monaco's defence was exceptionally good. Psychological superiority is now with Monaco. Fenerbahce are losing games where they don't have high three-point percentage. They are playing with a narrow rotation. The thing is Calathes was great for the whole series about defending Mike James. James' FG percentage is quite low. I wonder what he will do in the next game.

This is unacceptable behavior by that Monaco player. If he didn't provoke the fans there wouldn't be any problem at the end of the match. When it comes to the match I wasn't expecting us to play this defensive. While we had the court advantage in our hands we should have taken advantage of it with a dominant game.  :(

Guduric's 3-pointer in the last moments revived our hopes. But we couldn't prevent the last 2 points by Monaco. We should have been able to go for a foul there.

Didnt expect such a low scoring match also didnt think that Fenerbahce would drop a win at home and now another match goes into game 5 and this is what we like about basketball. Both teams missed o most everything and barely were able to score. Mike James didnt play good at all but got that clutch 3 in the end. Turkish fans continue to make stupid decisions and cause problems in football and now in basketball.

Well that's nothing new in a late games in a series situations, you also see that in the NBA in game 7 situations. When the pressure is on both teams it's hard to make baskets, that's why they day defense wins championships.

I somehow still think Fener with prevail though, even though the final game of the series will take place in Monaco again.

Interesting face that so far in Euroleague history there was 19 Game 5 andso far all decisive games were won by home teams. Now I have feeling that new history will be written. And if I have to guess, I think that Fenerbahche will make it against Monaco.
Tonight we have Panathinaikos - Maccabi, for me it's 50/50 game completely, not going to predict it. BTW, great thing that all 3 games will be played on different time.

Yeah, I am thinking the same actually.
I believe that Fener as wells as Olympiakos have legitimate chances to win game 5 away from home. Olympiakos dominated Barca in game 3 and they have the full momentum. Sure, Barcelona is playing at home and especially in the EL it's difficult to win away games, but for some reason I think these 2 teams might do it.

If you think that Pana is a 50/50 game you should bet it, you would get great value because Pana odds are really low. Betting Maccabi should have total value then.  ;)

https://talkimg.com/images/2024/05/07/rbupw.png

The current odds for Game 5 are like above. Bookmakers give Monaco a bigger chance after they captured the court advantage. But I also believe that we have a good chance to win the last match to qualify for Final Four. We beat Monaco away once in the series. It is quite possible to do it again. Defensive game didn't work in the previous match. Sarunas Jasikevicius is a really good coach and I believe in his tactical choices in this critical game to bring the win.  :)

I'm watching the Panathinaikos vs. Maccabi Tel Aviv game now and it's almost intolerable how much each team utilizes strategic fauls to gain an advantage. We're at the fourth quarter now and I'm sure we could have easily been eyeing a 100 each match game if the teams weren't playing in such a technical way.

Thankfully seems like Panathinaikos is just a little better at forcing their opponent make hasty decisions and take rebounds from them. But the big contradiction here is that while both teams have been utilizing technical fauls, neither is performing well in free throws. ::)

Odds were heavily favoring panathinaikos even at the time both teams had the same score. Now in the fourth quarter Panathinaikos is leading by 8 points, which is a nice turnaround for Panathinaikos. Let's see if they keep it that way.

Panathinaikos returns to Final 4 after 12 years. You shouldn't expect beautiful basketball in such kind of games and as expected it was defensive game. But what we saw in 4th quarter, Panathinaikos completely locked Maccabi, they even struggled to make normal attack. Great series, respect to Maccabi, but someone has to lose there. And after game in OAKA it looked that Panathinaikos already won Euroleague already.

We made it! It was a really tough match for us though. We could have finished this without OT actually. Wilbekin used that chance really poorly. But in the last moments of OT, Calathes took a big responsibility and single-handedly brought the win to us.  :)  First a 3-pointer and later a critical steal by him. Now we are going to Final Four and our next opponent is Panathinaikos. There is a familiar name there who is their coach Ergin Ataman.  :)

https://talkimg.com/images/2024/05/08/rW5Ua.png

By the way there is an interesting statistics. Fenerbahçe have become the first team to win away in Game 5 and reach Final Four by this way in the current system.

Congrats, mate! What a game. Similar like in yesterday's game I think that both teams is worth to play in Final 4, but someone have to lose and winner was decided in small details.
As said few posts above, I had a feeling that Fenerbahche can become first team to win Game 5 away. And damn, Calathes, such clutch play, especially missing many 3-pointers before. Now I just feel sad for Mike James. One of best Euroleague players is still without trophy and at his age, nobody knows how many chances he will have.

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Barca - Olympiacos, another game of equal teams. Another very low scoring, defensive game, but damn, how Barca collapsed in the end of 4th quarter...

Thank you.  :)  We have really capable players in our roster which always makes me hopeful to come back. I must admit that Šarūnas Jasikevičius was also doing his best today. He was always shouting at the players about what they should do to keep our hopes alive. When it comes to Mike James I agree with you. He is really a quality player at the Euroleague level. Tonight he was the best of his team with 20 points.

To be honest I wasn't expecting Barcelona to lose in front of their supporters. Their not reaching Final Four is a surprise to me.

Congrats!
Olympiakos' match was also very tough. They had to make a turnaround against their opponent but eventually managed to successfully pull it off. It's interesting now that two Greek teams could eventually end up playing against each other in the EuroLeague final. I can't wait for the semifinals. I'll watch both of them if I can as a Greek. Very exciting time to be watching basketball as someone from my country this year. It's been a very long time since we had this level of success.

The following matches will certainly be very exciting!

Well, it all went as expected actually.  ;D
Pana with the win at home and 2 close away wins for slight underdogs in away games. Even made a parley with these 3 games for combined odds of 5.5 . Too bad though I only wagered 10$, haha.

Anyway, we have our final 4. Refreshing to see 2 Greek team among them, must have been a while since that happened.
Panathinaikos and Olympiakos really had a good season so far, quite of a comeback for Pana after the struggles in recent seasons.
Real Madrid will still be the favourite for the final 4 but in this lineup of teams it is super close in my opinion. Every single team can make a case for themselves to win this year's Euroleague.
Looking forward for the last 4 games to find out who ends up on top this season!

Fenerbahçe Beko, which will compete in the final four for the first time since 2019, won the fifth game on the road, becoming the first team in Euroleague history to do so. Congratulations to Fenerbahce. Jasikevicius and Calathes should be evaluated separately. Jasikevicius came to Fenerbahce in the middle of the season when the team was in a bad situation, but that's the coach effect. Jasikevicius first gave the team belief and had an impact on everyone, but especially on Tarik's performance.

Calathes has really done something this season that not everyone can do. He was not wanted at the beginning of the season and with the transfer of Raul Neto, it was clear that he was leaving. But when Neto got injured he had to stay in the team and he worked a miracle. The Fenerbahce team is united with the Final-Four. Actually, after the 4th game I didn't believe that Fenerbahce would make it through, but they put up an incredible fight in the series. With these results, we are in for an enjoyable Final-Four series.

Yes, I also was not expected a Fener win after the 4th game. They had a remarkable success. I also agree completely about Jasikevicius and Calathes. Especially Calathes's story this year is something to be remembered for years. And those 3s in the overtime... It was unbelievable. I think he proved why he is a great basketball player, not only with his defence against Mike James, but also with the three-pointers he didn't hesitate to make at the most critical moment. In a game where he was shooting 1/8, to hit those two threes without hesitation, even though the opponent had a set on leaving him open.. That was really something remarkable. I actually lost my bet again on Monaco. I didn't think Fenerbahce could win in away game like this.

I would have really liked to see Anadolu Efes as well in Final Four but unfortunately their run ended early. It still feels great to have Fenerbahçe at this level. Turkish teams have been successful in the Euroleague in the recent years. Except the last year of course. I hope we can reach the finale to feel the excitement of the chance to bring the trophy to our country.  :)

We are the underdog against Panathinaikos according to the odds now. I'm not surprised with Real Madrid's odds.

https://talkimg.com/images/2024/05/10/1dUyv.png

Anadolu Efes this season was really weak and they barely got the place for the play in and that was a maximum from them this season,for next one they will need to bring better players. Panathinaikos for me is the favorite in this match and i think if they play good they woll reach the final. Real Madrid also favorite to win it all by my guess.

Well the odds how how close this year's final 4 really is.
There are slight favourite but it's hard to actually say who is going through the final. I would also say that Pana and Madrid should make it but the other goods teams, when having a good day, can also win easily, you never know.

It all depends on the day's form, that's all. If Pana/Madrid have a mediocre day and Fener/Olympiakos have a good day we could't see 2 "upsets" and a surprise fine. This season has been a rollercoaster for most teams (only not Real of course) and it wouldn't be a big surprise if this trend continues in the final 4.

In ACB Real lost their game in Valencia tonight and now share first place with surprisingly strong team of the season Unicaja, both have only 6 losses this season. Barcelona is 22 and 11, quite a lot of losses for such a stacked roster I think.

Almost all leagues in Europe are close before or even in the playoffs now. Give it 5-6 more weeks and the season everywhere is over and we have nothing to watch and only can wait for the Olympics.  :'(

Regular seasons in most of leagues is over and playoffs is starting. And if someone missed, Baskonia failed to reach ACB league playoffs for the first time in 30 years. It only shows how competetive ACB league is. But it won't stop them from playing in Euroleague next season as they have A license. This is what I hate about Euroleague that it's basically closed league. I wish that they would have similar system like in UEFA competition where clubs must perform well in national leagues to earn spot in international cups.

Yeah but Baskonia also really sucked this year!
But true, the ACB is as strong as ever, they always have plenty of teams the can compete in various European cups and also go far in the.
I would also like it more if actual champions would be eligible to play in the Euroleague. For example, who ever wins in Germany, it's just ALBA and Munich who will play in the EL. Ulm won the German championship last season, no EL for them.

It's all about money. They only want big famous cities with a lot of money in the league, just like FIFA. It's a ll just a corrupt business.  :-\

Playoffs in full effect.
Already saw plenty of surprises in some of the bigger league until now.

Tonight I won't get a lot of sleep since there are so many games now, haha. But hey, in some weeks the season is over so it is what it is.
Enjoy the games guys!

That's true. Since when Istarted following basketball almost 20 years ago almost every year I hear talks that Euroleague wants team in London and Paris and now there is talks about Dubai.

What leagues you're following. From what I saw, I wouldn't say that there is many upsets. Probably Ulm loss at home against Wurzburg is worth to mention or Valencia losing to Murcia. Paris lost game 1 against Cholet, but now they got confident win and regained home advanage.

I follow pretty much all the leagues in Europe, haha. I am a basketball fanatic honestly.

Well Milano lost a game in Italy and Virtus Bologna is even at 2:2 in their series.
In Austria you have the number 5 and number 7 seed in the final (yeah I also watch Austria) .

Bayern Munich (no1 seed) lost game 1 at home vs no 8 Ludwigsburg, huge upset.
I also follow 2nd devisions, for example in Germany, France, Italy and Spain and there have been upsets as well.
You wonder why I do this I guess. I also work part time as a scout.

There is a lot going on at the moment, you just have to follow everything, haha.

Yeah, seems that I missed some upsets. Today both Bayern and Ulm made series 1:1 with their opponents and did it comfortable. Tomorrow game between Virtus and Tortona, should be interesting. Tomorrow also Lithuanian league semifinals will begin. There were no big upsets in 1/4 finals, but series between Lietkabelis and Juventus was one of best 1/4 finals in our league for a while and last game was just crazy.
We have already one champion crowned in big league. Crvena Zvezda sweep Partizan 3:0 in series, such result is big surprise for me.
Following Austria or some 2nd divisions is hardcore. I thought you're doing it for bets, didn't expected that you're part time scout.

I'm very excited as there is Euroleague Final Four this week. I know that we aren't the favourite however my confidence in my team is quite high. As there are many Turkish people living in Berlin I expect Fenerbahçe to create an atmosphere like they are the hosts. I'm thinking of making a bet with some money on Fenerbahçe to win against Panathinaikos. If we lose against Ergin Ataman this would be an extra demoralizing factor for me.

Yeah, there is so many Turkish people living  in Germany that I already imagine how much support Fenerbahche will get. But I guess there will thousands of Olympiacos and Panathinaikos fans too, atmosphere should be amazing.
I see semifinal as 50/50 game, if it would be series, I guess we would need all 5 games. Personally, in BSFL I predicted that Real won't win trophy, it would be boring and Final 4 format doesn't works in favor of favorites. Will watch F4 as neutral spectator, but probably Fenerbahche would be my preferred team to win.