Valladolid - Real Madrid Valladolid was one of the worst teams last season, and for this year, they have changed all players (except 1). There is a pair of them that seems interesting (Sinanovic and Tripkovic), but in global terms I think quality is similar than last year, so I expect them to be a bottom ranked team. They made a poor pre-season, losing every game they played and beeing smashed by few spanish teams. Despite of that, they made a hugh surprise in the first match winning on the road against Barcelona! Valladolid was loosing by 12 points at half time and they managed to win by 7. How could it be posible? I think there is 2 main reasons: The first one is Sinanovic (28 points and 10 reb) and the second one (and more important) is that Valladolid played 2-3 def. Zone at the second half of the match and Barcelona didn’t know how to attack it. Barcelona played without Navarro (best european SG) and without him, team is weak from “outside”: they could only score 4 of 19 from 3 point range! Can it happen again vs Real Madrid? I don’t think so...Why? I have some reasons: First of all because I rate Madrid higher than Barcelona at this moment as they have showned in SuperCopa. Sinanovic can make another great game for Valladolid against Madrid but they will need much more than that to win this game. Can Valladolid play a 2-3 defence against Madrid? Clearly they shouldn’t because Madrid has lots of players who can score from outside (12 of 27 from 3 point rang in last game against Malaga). In addition to this, we have to take in consideration other factors: Valladolid has short roster (they played with only 9 players against Barcelona and 4 of them stayed on the court close to 30 min.), while Madrid used 11 players and nobody played more than 27 minuts). Valladolid traveled to Barcelona and came back to Valladolid (1300 km aprox.), while Madrid played at home and now they will move to Valladolid (200 km far away from Madrid, so its close). This game will be played in the mid-week. Madrid’s players are used to play 2 games every week as they play Euroleague and they also have deep roster, but it should penalize small teams like Valladolid, not used to play 2 games with only 2 days of rest, and furthermore, against the best 2 teams of the league. Madrid has won 25 of his 32 visits to Valladolid. Last season they won 72-84 despite hey were leading by 18 points at the end of 3th q. I expect more of the same in this game and a “normal” score could be around 70-85. It’s true that playng home is usually a high advantatge, but it’s not so important when class difference between 2 teams is as big as it is here...Madrid is a high scoring team and Valladolid has new roster. Good defence needs a lot of teamwork and Valladolid is still new team. Barcelona didn’t take their chances but Real Madrid is adviced after the “big surprise”. I expect Madrid to score over 80 points and Valladolid could be thankfull if they manage to score 70. I go with high stake because I can’t expect anything else than a clear win by Real Madrid. Published Oct-02-2012, 14:23 CET Betting option: Asian Handicap Pick: Real Madrid (-7.5) Odds: 1.91 Stake: 10 Bookmaker: BlueSquare Date: Oct-03-2012 Category: Spanish basketball 3 / Check ACBtips stats on Spanish basketball
