This is a very entertaining matchup between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Olympiacos Piraeus at Menora Mivtachim Arena, in Tel Aviv. Maccabi against Olympiacos is the match with big interest after their previous match at Euroleague. Review our thoughts on this match here below.

 

Maccabi Tel Aviv

Currently, Maccabi is in the 10th seed of Euroleague’s standings (9-12). After a terrible start of the season, they are looking to go for a final run and grab that playoff spot. Even though they have lost their last game to Baskonia by 24, it looks like this team has figured it out and started playing decent basketball. Maccabi’s leaders this season are Scottie Wilbekin (13ppg, 3.2ass), Johhny O’Bryant (11.1ppg, 5.4rpg). Maccabi also has nice depth as 8 of their players are scoring 7 or more points a game. Alex Tyus is coming after getting MVP of January award (11.2ppg, 4.2rpg, 1.2bpg, 83.3FG%, 14.6PIR) and helped Maccabi to go 4-1 in January. In home games, Maccabi is playing pretty decent (6-4).

 

Olympiacos

Currently, Olympiacos is in the 6th seed (12-9) and looking to grab at least 4th seed before the season ends. Pireaus is having tough times as they have lost 3 out of their 4 last games and all of these losses were by a huge amount of points. Leading scorers of this team are Nikola Milutinov (11.1ppg, 8.1rpg), Georgios Printezis (11.1ppg, 5.2rpg) and Vassilis Spanoulis (10.4ppg, 5.1apg). Spanoulis has been very inefficient last 3 games (5.6PIR, 3.6topg, 29.1FG%) and this is a huge part for Olympiacos slump because he is the main piece of the Olympiacos offense. Nikola Milutinov and Kostas Papanikolau might not show up on the court, both are questionable. In road games are not looking good (4-6).

 

H2H

Both teams statistical categories are pretty much the same, except the opposing team’s efficiency rating (Maccabi: 91.1PIR, Olympiacos: 82.4PIR), as we see Olympiacos is better defensively. Last game Olympiacos went victorious 88-80. Leaders for reds were: Vassilis Spanoulis (16pts, 5ass), Axel Toupane (15pts) and Nigel William Goss (14pts, 3ass, 18PIR). Maccabi’s leaders: DeAndre Kane (22pts, 6ass, 3stls 28PIR), Johny O’Bryant, Michael Roll, John Dibartolomeo (12pts each). Even though Olympiacos won this game by a solid amount of points, they are favorites for this game. Olympiacos was in a good form and Maccabi wasn’t. This is going to be a tough match, as both teams need this victory. Maccabi tries to grab a playoff spot and Olympiacos wants to get home court advantage as the Top 8 round comes. We expect a tie, physical game, where the winner is pretty much unpredictable.