Fenerbahçe hosts Valencia in THY EuroLeague


Round 5 of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Regular Season starts today with five games. The champs from Fenerbahçe (2-2) return home today to receive red-hot Valencia Basket (3-1), winners of their last three games, including two in blowout fashion. It's their first meeting since 2011, and Valencia owns a 1-3 record against Fenerbahçe before that and brings the EuroLeague's best defense (65.5 oppg.) to the table. Led by Luigi Datome, Fenerbahçe boasts the third-best three-point accuracy of all teams. Erick Green has been unstoppable for Valencia, and his battle with Brad Wanamaker and Kostas Sloukas should be fascinating. Elsewhere, Zvezda (2-2) puts its perfect home record on the line today against streaking Bamberg (2-2) as these two teams break their share of a six-way tie in the middle of the standings today.

Baskonia (0-4) looks for a restart under a new head coach today, while Panathinaikos (2-2) tries to turn around its early problem with blowout losses on the road.

Also, two historic clubs face off with a valuable victory between them as Maccabi (2-2) hosts Milan (1-3). And thursday ends with Real Madrid putting its unbeaten record on the line against high-powered visitors Khimki Moscow Region (3-1). All eyes will be on the battle at guard between wunderkind Luka Doncic for the hosts and do-it-all veteran Alexey Shved for the visitors. They rank first and third, respectively, among EuroLeague scorers.