Top 16, Game 6, Full throttle

What position will we finish this year? 

We will know very soon!

It's been another tough week for many, as the top players failed to get big numbers.

Some of the "safe" cards in our team did pretty bad last week as well.

The team gathered 136 points with Micov injured and McCaleb, Krstic and Lorbek very far away from their usual scores...

On the positive side, all changes were successful. Diamantidis, Navarro and Hendrix scored very well and way above the scores of the players they replaced (Sloukas, Spanoulis, Andersen)

Here are the choices for this week:

Diamantidis His good performance last week was not enough for Panathinaikos to win. Now they play for first place in Russia. Diamantidis is always there when the team needs a leader. He stays.

McCaleb His little slip-up last week is just a glitch I think. Plays against bad defenders Real, whom he punished in the first game with 36 rating. He is another keeper.

Navarro His performance has shot up in the Top 16 and there is even more space for him with Eidson out there are 20-25 mins of play time that need to be filled with someone else. La Bomba is the natural choice.

Spanoulis (Micov out) Micov injured and Spanoulis comes back in. His injury did throw him a bit out of rhythm. I am also afraid that his performance will follow last years falling curve. But, he is Olympiacos' leader this year. He knows it and I believe he will show it in a game-final for the Reds.

Langford has become the major scorer for Maccabi, he averages 16.4 rating in the Top 16 with 15 points per game. He plays against Barca's best defence but in a non-interest game, as both teams know their final position already (1st and 2nd). Its going to be a relaxed game I think.

Bojan Bogdanovic (Siskauskas out) Siska, did a 7.7 last week I expected him to do a 10. This week I need someone who can do better and has a bigger motive. Bojan comes in to bring the extra push. He has done a good season. Doing badly only against tough defences like the -1 against Panathinaikos. I believe he will rise up to the challenge this week.

Hendrix was a good bet last week. His performance in the Top 16 has been impressive. I was going to change him though if I had another change only due to the fact that he plays against really tough defence (Barca). Hopefully we will see open defences in a game without qualifying importance.

Lorbek Despite the bad performance last week I will keep him because, if the last game was any indication. he seems to be no match for Macabbi's tall guys. 

Krstic. 11 is very bad indeed against the tall guys of Olympiacos. But truth to be said he was not needed in the last quarter. So he stays,  I believe he can still do big numbers against Efes.

Banic (Kirilenko out). Please don't shout "Blasphemy!!!" Kazlauskas is a very experienced coach. He used the second team for practically all the 4th quarter against Olympiacos. I think he will protect his AK47. Why risk an injury when you will need him the most in the play-offs? Banic is a decent tall guy, Unicaja is one of the worst defences, and Bilbao is very thirsty this year!

And the team now looks like this: