Barcelona vs Panathinaikos Prediction 15 January 2025

Will Panathinaikos maintain their second place in the Euroleague standings after the 21st round? At least the Greek team is favored in the matchup against Barcelona. The Catalans are not in the best form, but it's too early to write them off, especially after their victory over the tournament leader in the last round. In any case, an away game at "Palau Blaugrana" doesn't seem easy. Therefore, we will consider different options to make the prediction optimal.

Head-to-Head

In a stretch of 35 head-to-head matches, Barcelona has the advantage with 24 wins. In December, they challenged Panathinaikos in Athens. The outcome was decided in the final moments. One of the heroes of the match was Mathias Lessort, who scored a crucial free throw (90:89). However, the French center is injured and will not help Panathinaikos in the upcoming game.

Barcelona

It's not surprising that Joan Peñarroya is close to being dismissed from Barcelona. He took over the team before the season, but it has only gotten worse. The Blaugrana merely close out the top eight in the ACB League, and in the Euroleague, they are not even in the playoff zone. The team concedes quite a lot and repeatedly fails in the final moments. Surprisingly, in the last round, they outplayed Monaco in all aspects (98:84). At one point, the opponent began a comeback, but it was thwarted. Dario Brizuela had a game of his life, scoring 27 points and rarely missing from distance. The coach can only regret that the Spanish national team player seldom delivers such performances. Note that Nico Laprovittola is out for the season. He hasn't been successfully replaced. Raul Neto was signed but didn't fit in with the team and was quickly released. The club was ready to sign Thomas Heurtel, but the fans were extremely unhappy with this, so the deal didn't go through.

Panathinaikos

Panathinaikos has achieved five consecutive wins in the Euroleague. Recall that they are playing without Mathias Lessort, who suffered a rather severe leg fracture. Grigonis is also not participating in matches, but his role is not as crucial for the team. Despite this, they are in excellent form. For example, Panathinaikos handed Bayern their only defeat in Munich (80:69). After that, they played two home games, both very high-scoring. In the game against Virtus (111:90), Kendrick Nunn and Omer Yurtseven scored 27 points each. In the last round, Panathinaikos confidently defeated Partizan (96:84), with only seven players scoring points. Among them, Kendrick Nunn stood out again (25 points). Note that Lorenzo Brown is unlikely to play in the upcoming match, as he missed the last round due to injury and was also absent from the national championship match last weekend.

Match Prediction

The upcoming match should be one of the most interesting in the 21st round. Both teams have been strong offensively lately, which cannot be said about their defense. Nevertheless, Panathinaikos is one of the tournament leaders and approaches the match with a winning streak. Therefore, as a key bet, we suggest total points for the guests over 84.5, which has hit in 9 of their last 10 matches.