EuroLeague Continues Tonight ! A Quick Preview Of The Rematches

The first two matches of the knockout stage of the EuroLeague are finished, and the rematches are starting with two games tonight. We can easily say that the Turkish biggest city, Istanbul, is the center of European Basketball in the next few days as they have three representatives located in that town.

Baskonia will host CSKA Moscow in Vitoria-Gasteiz, and that is the only game, that won't be played in Turkey. Fenerbahce is going to play against Panathinaikos, also tonight, in Istanbul.

For tomorrow we have two more games scheduled Anadolu Efes will play against Olympiakos, and Darussafaka will host Real Madrid, also in Istanbul.

The first two games brought two surprises.

Real Madrid lost the home ground advantage against Darussafaka, and after an impressive first game, they lost tightly in the second. This is the clash between the 1st and the 8th seed, at the end of the regular part of the competition and it would be a huge surprise if the Spanish team is eliminated.

That would happen for the first time in EuroLeague's history. Both teams play fast and attractive basketball, and we think that we are going to see much more excitement in these two games. However, Real is a much more experienced team, and we believe that they are going to grab at least one victory in Istanbul, despite the fact that they were defeated here in the regular part of the season.

Anadolu Efes also made a huge surprise in the game against Olympiakos, and they silence the home crowd because nobody expected for them to win. After the first game in which they lost with 15 points margin, they managed to have more concentration in the finish of the second one and pulled out an extremely important victory 73-71.

What is a big handicap for them is the fact that they do not have such a passionate fans when playing at home, like other teams in this stage and we think that Olympiakos will return to home ground advantage and eventually advance to the Final Four.

The reigning champions were not so convincing in Moscow against Baskonia. In both games, the Spanish team had a chance to come back and turn around the things, but eventually, Milos Teodosic and Nando De Colo prevented that from happening. When they were needed the most, they made several straight points and secured the win. Things will be much different in Spain, but having in mind the quality of the Russian team we think that they are going to pull out one victory in the next two games, and secure their advance to the semifinals.

The game which was considered to be the most interesting and exciting eventually turned out to be pretty boring. Fenerbahce won two times in Athens, and for sure they are going to win at least once in the next two games in Istanbul and secure their spot on the Final Four. Bogdan Bogdanovic was fantastic, and he was the MVP of the both rounds, as he was unstoppable destroying the Greek team's defense. Fenerbahce is looking pretty healthy in the last month, and we think that after the last year's finals it is their turn to win this competition.