Riding the wave of Friday's impressive win against Olympiacos, Anadolu Efes will look to take a one-game series lead against their Greek rivals at home today at the Abdi Ipekçi Arena.
The series is tied 1-1, ahead of the two games in Istanbul this week. The battle of the boards may prove crucial as Olympiacos won Game 1 after massively outrebounding Efes 47-31. Efes, however, turned the tables in Game 2 after more or less matching Olympiacos on the boards, claiming 36 rebounds to the home team's 37. Olympiacos also need to create better shooting opportunities after converting just 44.3 percent of their two-point attempts last week, the lowest of all teams.
Also in Istanbul today, the Game of the Week promises an exciting showdown as Darüşşafaka Doğuş host Real Madrid in another series, which is also square at 1-1. Darüşşafaka will be high on confidence after pulling out a shock win in Madrid on Friday. The hosts must also remember that they comfortably defeated the Spanish team, 81-68 in Round 12, at Volkswagen Arena Istanbul during the regular season.
Darüşşafaka out-rebounded Madrid by an average of 36.5 to 33.0 in the first two games of the series, and in a game which is likely to come down to the buzzer, the visiting team need to improve their free-throw conversion rate of 65.2 percent from last week.
