Euroleague - BC Khimki v Panathinaikos

9 December 2009

Preview By Tipster Hayate

Handicap +5.5 : -5.5

My run is the worst of the last years so far but i will continue to post picks as long as my mind is clear.Now Panathinaikos travels to Moscow to play against Khimki Moscow and with a win will possibly clear the first place of the group since Real was defeated by the Russian team.Seeing Panathinaikos lately i think that the Greeks are playing quite bad while they started the season impressively.At the first game Pao thrashed the Russians by 35 points so the motive for the hosts is huge today as they would like to prove that the performance of the first game was due to a bad day and nothing more.Pao's main weapon in the competition is Nikola Pekovic who is among the first scorers of Euroleague and only a few big guys can guard him successfully.Pekovic today is not totally ready as he suffers from a leg injury but he will play.Javtokas and reserve center Mozgov are two players that can face him quite successfully in my opinion as they both have size and experience.Batiste maybe will have a good game this afternoon but expect from these two the reserve big guys of the Greeks are out of form.Tsartsaris has a bad season so far since when he returned,Fotsis has extremely bad stats and his game is rather physical while young Sermadini can give solutions but again he has a long way in front of him to reach a high level.Now if we take a look to the guards Panathinaikos has an advantage but it is not so big.Diamantidis is very steady but Jasikevicious still tries to find his tempo as he recovered recently from his injury.Spanoulis can reach double digits but not so easily,Tepic has not showed something great and Kalathis is good against mediocre teams.In general Pao is a team which is based mainly to the team effort and Obradovic great coaching.In the two difficults games Pao had to give since now against Real and Olympiacos was defeated easily.Khimki is not at the level of these two teams but at home is very strong,Scargiolo is a very experienced coach,Mc Carthy seems that he has found its tempo so Khimki can very competitive tonight and fight for the win until the end.