Thursday 11.09 Euroleague

isma

isma

Active Member
KK Cibona VIP Zagreb - Unicaja Malaga
20:45 CET (GMT+0.01)

Unicaja are the former spanish league champion, but key player, Garbajosa was transfered to Toronto Raptors.

Unicaja 0-2 on this euroleague season travelled to Zagreb without Cabezas (PG) 19ppg, 3.5 rpg and 3.5 apg, and Brown (PG) but this is a long time injury and he didnt played still this season.

Cibona is a strong home team (Drazen Petrovic Basketball Center) won against Olimpija and lost against Panathinaikos.

Unicaja lost against Maccabi (OT) and against Joventut (buzzer beater), and theyre not doing very well on ACB spanish league 3 wins and 4 lost.

Of course, Santiago (C) is doing better everymatch and Unicaja improves on rebounding and intimidation, but the loose off of Cabezas (week 1 MVP) is very important for the organization team.

I took Cibona ML @-111 Betfair, stake 5/10
 
gl buddy, still looking into the card for Thursday. I think this might be closer then many think, Welsch seems to have fitted in nicely in offense for Malaga.

Still deciding what the play in this one is...
 
Sure, it will not be an easy match for anyone, but i think Cibona will take advantage beeing local team, and Unicaja still feel a bit low.
 
I think today i will focused on that match, and i will try another bet:

KK Cibona VIP Zagreb - Unicaja Malaga
20:45 CET (GMT+0.01)

This is a very important match for both teams, because the one who loose will be in troubles to classify, of course it has been only three games but every game on this competition is hard to play.

I think it will be an slow match, Unicaja without their main PG (Cabezas) will try to play every ball clearly and without precipitation.

Both are defensive minded teams and both play slow transitions, that makes me think about to take the under.

I took under 150.5 @-120, stake 5/10.
 
First of all, Marcus Brown is nowhere near being PG. If he is PG then I am ballet star. Second, Brown has not played this season, so pretty much irrelevant information here whatsoever. Will become relevant when he comes back...
 
Euroleague record: 7-2, +18.2u, 151.66% payback

Žalgiris - Winterthur FCB
Winterthur FCB -1.5, -111, 5u, Pinnacle

Žalgiris is 1-1 and Barca is 2-0 here. Definately not based on any kind of stats here. If that would be the case I could throw it out the window and just go and watch the match here. The thing is that Barca struggles big time with their frontcourt on regular basis here as they are not producing things that they should do neither really offensively nor defensively. Yet that case here is that Žalgiris frontcourt has looked really far from last season's power and there are couple of reasons for it: 1) Darjuš Lavrinovič is gone and playing for Unics now (what a duo he was with Beard last season), 2) Beard is getting older, has become lazy like hell, not working in defense, and is thinking too much about his music making stuff, 3) Jankūnas is more concerned (my personal view from the way he plays) about stats and showing himself for NBA guys as he might be fishing there soon as well, 4) with all my respect to Motolla, but I still cannot stop thinking that the guy is nothing special here. I hope that Vazquez, Marconato, Kasun and Trias will finally come to senses here and try to exploit thin Žalgiris frontcourt.

When it comes to evaluating backcourts then there is HUGE advantage to Barca. Only legit threats for Žalgiris are Popovic and Penney so far (Ginevičius, Kalnietis, Mačiulis have not been stable and the last 2 still are young guys who will need to pick their game up). When you put those guys up against Lakovic, Navarro, Basile, Ukic and Kakiouzis then all you can think of is that they are just so much better.

Coaching also shows the edge for Barcelona here. Ivkovic is by mile ahead of Bagatskis when it comes to leading his team and dealing with it. There are also talks that Bagatskis might be replaced soon and Žalgiris is looking for options, but it is not official, just rumours.

Barca is much deeper team that should be able to take advantage of its superior backcourt, use their ability to contain Beard under the basket (has not been that hard lately), and use their depth as a strength against very poor options of Žalgiris. Barca can and actually is using 11 players and all of them can really deliver at any moment and that creates match-up problems as well for opposing teams. Meanwhile, Žalgiris can rely on something like 7 players and out of them only 5 really can be considered as legit threats.

So taking all of the match-up issues I am picking Barca to win the game here. Yes, Barca has not been impressive, coming after loss at home against TAU which might be hurting, but if you opposition scores 57.9% of their shots, then what can you do? Still one thing that worries me is Barca's perimeter defense. They have allowed their opponents to take 20+ treys regularly and Žalgiris has the power to knock those down for sure. Almost any player can do that. And if Žalgiris has a shooting night then I might be cooked really fast.
 
Basketbolists said:
First of all, Marcus Brown is nowhere near being PG. If he is PG then I am ballet star. Second, Brown has not played this season, so pretty much irrelevant information here whatsoever. Will become relevant when he comes back...
Click to expand...
Mate, i'm spanish, i know Brown didnt played all along this season, but some can thought about Unicaja like the team that won the ACB championship, and they arent, and maybe there are two amin reasons because of it: Brown and Garabajosa are out. That's why i mentioned Brown even knowing he is out.

About the PG thing... you can consider him what you want but regarding the Euroleague site Cabezas and Brown play the same position:
10 CABEZAS, CARLOS Spain Guard 1.86 1980
41 BROWN, MARCUS United States Guard 1.91 1974

If Brown isnt PG neither is Cabezas... maybe none of them is a PG... i don't know maybe i'm wrong, if that sorry. Anyway i think my picks it's so clear to be talking about that detail.

GL with Barcelona!!! It's my team but tonite im a little affraid of them.
 
KK Cibona VIP Zagreb - Unicaja Malaga

Ended the first half and the match goes that way:
Cibona 48 - Unicaja 41

By now stright win dont looks bad, because Cibona is leading almost from the first ball.

89 points are more than i've expected, let's hope them slow down...
 
KK Cibona VIP Zagreb - Unicaja Malaga

Ended the third quarter and the match goes that way:
Cibona 69 - Unicaja 54

The straight win seems done altough we will never know...

The under seems it's not gonna be beacause they scored 123 points, only at 28 to get the 151 :S
 
KK Cibona VIP Zagreb - Unicaja Malaga

Cibona 87 - Unicaja 84 (OT)

Straight win OK!

Under 150.5 WRONG, FT 74-74 but the OT made us fail.
 
isma

Have you ever heard about position SG? Euroleague does not distinguish between them here. They put PGs and SGs and Guard (which they rightfully are) and SFs and PFs as Forwards. So that is the case here.
Anyway, argument about Unicaja and last season sounds really odd and more than misleading because it more looks like some stuff just to justify a pick instead of looking at things the way they are at the moment and how the team looks. It is not that important how they played in previous seasons. They have lost players, but everyone can look up stats and see who did what.
 
Basketbolists

I don't want to spend time discussing about if my pick is good or bad stuff, or if Brown play as PG or SG...

There are my argue to take that bet and i just shared it, if you don't like it don't take it.

Unicaja isnt the same team as they was last season, and thats the main thing i was tryibg to tell, thats all, because if somebody doesnt know that maybe could think it will be an easy matc for them against crazy Cibona. Last year Unicaja won almost 10 from 12 first matches on EL, this year lost all three played games, i think its important to know theyre not the same team.

Everyone can look up the last year stats and look who did what? I thought thats what we are trying to save to other guys having to do that, sharing our picks, isnt it?.

I dont explain my pick for you to like it, just to share and know others guys here theyr opinion about, but not about if a player play as PG or SG, i expect main resons about.

Anyway, congrats for Barcelona.
 
Trust me buddy, I know Euroleague inch perfect from almost every aspect day in and day out. The thing is that writing a write-up in a forum like this one is essential to give fair explanation.
Your explanation was based on how Unicaja has become weaker without Brown and Garbajosa who left.
The really essential point here is that Unicaja has not seen them at all this season (and will not see Garbajosa). The main thing in capping basketball is to understand how teams match against each other here and how the game might run. Injury that mattered for this match was Cabezas and not Brown. Brown is adding just extra line and giving wrong impression here if it is not stated explicitly that this dude has not played. I hardly doubt that US guys pay extremely lots of attention to EL as such, so everything we write here has to be relevant and not info that might mislead them and maybe force them into bad judgement in the end. Of course, I agree that Cibona was the right side to be on, but I would have had different aspects and I really do not like when people write some info that is totally out of order anyway. Over and out, I will not discuss this issue anymore.
 
Ok mate, sorry for beeing so useful...

I will try to write like you, i know you know a lot and i have to learn more to be as useful as you are.

What you have seen is the way i write and bet, if you dont agree please dont look my picks.

I know i didnt know everything, but neither you and i dont think you had to tell me how to write or what is useful or what not.

Thanks.
 
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