Zalgiris Kaunas
Zalgiris Kaunas enters this game after a 75-83 home loss to Zenit St Petersburg. Although Zalgiris was able to stay close in this game and give a good fight to a Russian team that is playing great basketball, Zalgiris had every chance to get the win, considering that this was Zenit's 3rd game in a week. We can agree that X clearly won the coaches' duel. Pascual, while the efforts of Grigonis and Lauvergne were simply not enough to lead the team to victory.
Zalgiris has reduced the number of three-pointers made compared to the beginning of the season. However, the reduction of three-pointers does not bring much benefit, because Zalgiris is also very often outrebounded by its direct opponents under the basket and Lauvergne is not the kind of player who can punish the opponents on every offensive possession when he gets a 1v1 opportunity. Zalgiris definitely lacks a real light wing, and without Garin's recovery and a replacement, the season will be doomed to failure. Neither Vasturia, Milaknis nor Grigonis look strong in this position, and Hayes, who was supposed to play in the light/heavy wing position, has been playing only in the heavy wing position lately.
After losing 5 games in a row and facing Barcelona in their next game, who will be coming into the match after a disappointing away defeat, the predictions are not favourable for Zalgiris. Nevertheless, it is to be hoped that Barcelona will repeat last week's praise and Zalgiris, playing above its capabilities at home, will keep the game close until the end.
Barcelona
For Barcelona Zalgiris will be the 11th match of the tournament and Barcelona is currently in first place in the standings with 8 wins and 2 losses. Before last week's round, Sarunas Jasikevicius' side had won 6 games in a row, but lost a disappointing 68-80 away to Lyon. Barcelona is an ambiguous team, a team that is definitely among the favourites to win the EuroLeague if it wants to. Sometimes, watching this team play, you get the impression that the players are not always interested in winning, that the desire and the effort are not enough.
Of course, Sarko is working on developing the "winner's mentality" that he has often mentioned in previous seasons, but at least for now, Barcelona is far from it. However, this is an individually capable team that does not need top-level team play to win against potentially weaker teams in the regular season. Barca's loss to Asvel is also more of a minus than a plus for Zalgiris here, as Barcelona will not be relaxing for the second game in a row. \
Forecast
Barcelona will be coming into this game after an away defeat to Asvel, while Zalgiris will be trying to break a streak of 5 consecutive losses. Both in terms of the line-ups and the game, there is no doubt that Zalgiris will need to play an ideal game to face Barcelona. Whether Zalgiris is capable of playing a perfect game and whether it would even be possible to beat Barcelona is a question that will be answered next week. Nevertheless, the most realistic scenario is that Barcelona will take home a victory by double digits.
Barcelona -7,5, 1,85 kof., betsafe
If you're interested in following all the reviews we put up, you can find them here here .We also recommend you visit our Facebook page Serious Bets
EN 
LT 
DE 
FR 
SV 
ES 
IT 
FI 
LV 
SK 
SL 
TR