With five regular season games left to play for all teams, just two of them -- Olympiacos Piraeus and Real Madrid -- have qualified mathematically to the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Playoffs. At the same time, both Olympiacos and Real are still trying to clinch home-court advantage in those best-of-five series starting April 25.
In both of those races, things can take a new shape this week, and two games with implications in both of those races take place on Friday night, with Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul welcoming Zalgiris Kaunas before AS Monaco plays host to Valencia Basket.
Both hosts, Fenerbahce (17-12) and Monaco (19-10), are on the verge of mathematically qualifying to the playoffs. They also need victories if they wish to capture all-important home-court advantage in that phase.
The visiting teams, Zalgiris (15-14) and Valencia (14-15), are deep in an elbow-to-elbow race, currently on the outside looking in, placed just below top eight playoff spots.
Zalgiris enters Round 30 in ninth place due to a tiebreak disadvantage against Cazoo Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz (15-14). In fact, Zalgiris is on the wrong side in head-to-head tiebreakers with six of the 10 other teams with at least 14 wins. Three of the four tiebreakers that Zalgiris may yet claim are against none other than Fenerbahce, on Friday in Istanbul, and Monaco and Valencia, who both visit Zalgirio Arena over 48 hours in next week's double round. Winning any of those head-to-heads might or might not determine if Zalgiris makes the playoffs, but adding victories would certainly improve its chances.