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Galata's record in Izmir this season is 0-2, and they will be eliminated if they lose again

Eurocup winners are facing a wall, this is their 'to be or not to be' game. The quarter-final is played in best of three series, they surprisingly lost at home to defending champions Pinar Karsiyaka. They now have to win this game, but they do not have good memories from this arena

The old saying 'never underestimate the heart of a champion' is pretty accurate for the first game of the quarter-final series between defending champions Karsiyaka and Galatasaray. Even though they went into that game against Eurocup winners as underdogs, Ufuk Sarica's team made a break in the first game. And since this is the best of three series, they now have a match-point. 

- We won a crucial game in this series and now we have the deciding game at Izmir. The first win will not mean anything if we don't win at home - said coach Sarica.

After the first 20 minutes of the game in Istanbul, his team were on their way to lose, they were down by 5 and they couldn't impose themselves offensively (34-29). But all of that changed in the second half. They scored 23 points in the third quarter, almost as much in the whole first half. And overall 45 points in the second half. Defense stayed at the same level it was on in the first half, and that was Pinar's formula for success. 

 - We scored around 75 against Galatasaray. We have to stay around those numbers in the second game - said Sarica, and that means they will try to win this with defense, which has been their strong suit this season. 

They do not have as many scorers to have a shoot-out with Galatasaray. Wright can pull his weight there, Gabriel and Abercrombie can join, but that's not enough. They cannot count on Sipahi and Iverson to score over 10 or even over 15 points in every game.

- We believed that we can win in Istanbul, we have been eliminating top teams from the play-off for three years now. We have experience in that. We will fight to the last ball at home. Galata might have won the Eurocup, but we are ready - said Sarica who won without Palacios and Jones whom he sort of announced that they could be playing (at least that is how we understood it). 

Only 11 days earlier, Galatasaray defeated Pinar at home. That was their fourth back-to-back win, and after that they won at Istanbul in the last round of regular season. But all these successes seemed to have slowed down Ergin Ataman's team, for them over-confident. And then things started well against Pinar (had 25-15 in the 13th minute)...

- Even though we were in the lead for the most of the final quarter, we made too many mistakes in offense and defense. We did not score free throws, we missed open three pointers... We simply had not had the right competitive game after the Eurocup final. I felt in this game that our rhythm dropped - said Ataman who tried to rest his players a little in the last rounds, but clearly not enough. 

- We started with a defeat, now we have to find our rhythm. If they won away, so can we - said Ataman.

In the last 4:15 minutes of the game, Galatasaray did not score from the floor and that is one of the main reasons they lost. After Lasme scored, they scored only three more points from the free throw line. On the other side, they conceded two three pointers by Spahi, one by Gabriel, and Wright scored several points. 

If we're to talk about slip ups, Schilb with 6 points, McCollum with 11 and even Lasme with 8 and Guler with 9 points have all slipped up. That is too much to defeat Pinar who imposed themselves with their fighting spirit. Ataman complained that they are out of rhythm because they played irrelevant games in the finish of the regular season, but they are facing a wall now. If they lose they will end the season that has been successful because of the Eurocup, but their plan definitely wasn't to get eliminated in the quarter-final.

Semi-final brings about clashes with their big rivals, Fenerbahce. Galatasaray would not want to miss that for anything, but they are facing elimination and they will have to play much better than in the first game. We should also point out that they lost both games at Karsiyaka this season, both in the league and in the Eurocup.

The margin dropped by two points since yesterday, but I still see this as under. Pinar and Galata faced each other five times this season. The first one, here in Izmir, finished at 189 points, but that was an irrelevant game mid-way through the season, and such usually end at a lot of points in the Turkish championship. They played for an extra point back then, but I do not expect that today. After that, they played a Eurocup game here, it was a tough game at 131 point. Return fixture was played at 158 points, but Galata scored a lot of things then, scored 93 points and the game went over. It does not seem realistic to me today that a team will reach 90, I actually don't expect either team to reach 80. In the last two weeks, Pinar and Galata played two games, both ended at 141 points. That's their head-to-head games, 3-2 in favor of under at this margin, but there is an explanation for those two overs. Motivation is not in question today either, Pinar are in the lead 1-0, they will try to finish this. Coach Sarica mentions that they have to be at around 75 points offensively which means that they will try to win this with defense, to limit Galata to 70 or less points. Galatasaray have shown many times this season that they can play well defensively, especially in high stakes games. And such were both games against Pinar in the Eurocup round of 16 (they limited Pinar to 67 and 65 points). They limited Bayern in the quarter-final return fixture to 59, Strasbourg in the final to 66 and 67. Of the more important games, they only went over both times against Granca, but Granca and Pinar cannot be compared. If we don't count in the 'All Star' game against Turk Telekom, Galata have conceded 74, 67, 67, 71, 66 and 134 with overtime against the Turks in the last seven games. This is a game for the highest stake, and in my opinion it should be under 150.