EL 2023/24 Play-Offs: Barcelona - Olympiacos

[iskoch]

I think 3-2 Barcelona.

[EverGreen]

Olympiacos 3-1. Barca's guards apart from Sator and Lapro are trash. Roubio and Jabari are wash ups. Ricky can't shoot. Jabari can't run, Jakobaitis is too soft.

[Edgar]

3-1 Barca. Homecourt will decide. Refs will be on Barca's side. Fall will be matched with Willy, Vesely on Wright. Lapro, Satoransky, Rubio on Walkup, Canaan, NWG...is the same. On the wings Barca has advantage. Jabari will eat alive Peters in the offense like he did before 2 months. Papanikolau running with Abrines around the blocks will be quite something...and Kalinic can guard literally everyone. Also, in Barca everyone can hit 3 pt shot except Willy. Even Vesely can. Monaco would be much better matchup for Oly.

[Toruko]

3-1 Barca. Homecourt will decide. Refs will be on Barca's side. Fall will be matched with Willy, Vesely on Wright. Lapro, Satoransky, Rubio on Walkup, Canaan, NWG...is the same. On the wings Barca has advantage. Jabari will eat alive Peters in the offense like he did before 2 months. Papanikolau running with Abrines around the blocks will be quite something...and Kalinic can guard literally everyone. Also, in Barca everyone can hit 3 pt shot except Willy. Even Vesely can. Monaco would be much better matchup for Oly.

The quality of the guards and wings of Barca is very difficult to handle for Oly but the lack of defense of Willy could cause some trouble for Barca.

[Straight forward]

This one tricky. I believe Grimao has no balls to properly set the hierarchy, whatever it could be. Rubio appearance established even more mess like Grimao hadn't his hands full already. I doubt Rubio can already take it over, even though that's possible scenario. It would be the best solution for mediocre Grimao. Some true leader taking over everything into his hands. Other ways I doubt Grimao can win even with probably slightly superior roster.

Tonight Jokubaitis was carrying Barca and was the one with the ball in the last seconds. That says a lot. Barca struggled with hierarchy to certain extent even under Saras, now it's complete mess. Who's the best guard of Barca? No-one has any ideas...

[Edgar]

The quality of the guards and wings of Barca is very difficult to handle for Oly but the lack of defense of Willy could cause some trouble for Barca.

Yup, I agree with you. But then, I still expect Vesely 25+ mins and Willy will put on Wright 10-12 pts easy. Fall can't play whole game. Huge thing for Barca is that they are full of wings who can switch and guard anyone from 1-4 positions, like Abrines, Kalinic, Satoransky, even Jabari...

[Nemanja95]

It looks like to me, Olympiacos has more team connection, experience and tactical advantage. Although, Barcelona has a little bit better players. I would say 1-3 for Olympiacos.

[Straight forward]

It looks like to me, Olympiacos has more team connection, experience and tactical advantage. Although, Barcelona has a little bit better players. I would say 1-3 for Olympiacos.

This. Even though I think it will go down to 5 games.

[Toruko]

It looks like to me, Olympiacos has more team connection, experience and tactical advantage. Although, Barcelona has a little bit better players. I would say 1-3 for Olympiacos.

In do or die games the quality of game finishing players are decisive. You cant compare it with a rs game. Olys go to guard is Canaan. If he lets you win one game youll lose the next one.

[Nemanja95]

In do or die games the quality of game finishing players are decisive. You cant compare it with a rs game. Olys go to guard is Canaan. If he lets you win one game youll lose the next one.

Is not in any case. I think Olympiacos has more stability to pass through the mental and physical pressure in games like these ones.

[paspalj]

I think this will be the same as what I wrote in the Fener thread. Oly gets one in Barcelona and then gets both in SEF. Actually in the beginning of the season I think I had Real, Oly, Fener, Partizan for F4. Obviously I don’t mind being wrong and Pao getting there but 3/4 would be decent given my prediction game scores

[Nemanja95]

This. Even though I think it will go down to 5 games.

It seems to despite extraordinary quality of Barcelona,it's team who 'll stumble on harder challenge.
On the other hand, Olympicos is team who knows how to put opponent in their style of play.
Also, Bartzokas is better coach then Grimau, although Grimau could be one day great coach.
On the beginning of the season, I was thinking Olympiacos 'll have much more problems to overcome leaving Vezenkov and Sloukas, but it's not so big difference as I thought.

[saras]

The 2 favorite teams of the refs. The scandal with fall elbowing everyone on the post in every possesion still continues. However the gap in terms of talent is huge. Actually one team is talented, the other one is playing something between handball and limogues' basketball, using on their advantage the fact that referees dont call every foul they do in every single possesion. But fibalona is the other favorite team of the officials, so the usual 90-10 on loserbiakos' side will be now 60-40 on their side. Not enough to overcome the talent gap between these 2 teams, so 3-1 or 3-0 barcelona

[Levenspiel]

The Barcelona we have witnessed over the last month cannot win a single game in this series. They are the weakest team of the playoffs, imho.

[Edgar]

I will write it here since it's about Olympiacos.

Ok, so Panathinaikos won against Oly in OAKA. 1st of all, I never talk about refs but this tonight was almost one of the biggest robberies in the last few years. It's crazy what refs tried to help Olympiacos. Never mind at the end.

Fall was absolutely not factor when Juancho(MVP of the game) and Mitoglou were playing together. Lessort entered the game for the first time 8 minutes before the end of the 1st half. Mitoglou took him out of the paint and Juancho had huge gap in the paint for dunks. But then Juancho got 3 fouls somehow in 2 minutes and Lessort came to play. Barcelona did the same with Olympiacos before 2 months and Jabari destroyed them in the same way. When Lessort played Fall was factor mostly with the rebounds. Peters was really bad and Juancho destroyed him. Also Walkup plays really bad, I mean really bad...

Good things for Oly are NWG and Canaan who are in good form. But it will be much different against Barcelona that is much different roster than Panathinaikos. Grimau must play Vesely and Jabari most of the time. Even Kalinic on PF is good. Willy needs to go on Wright. Sure, Barca will concede a lot over him in those 10-15 minutes but Willy against Wright in the offense is KFC. McKissic and Papanikolau must be really good for Olympiacos to have decent chance.