EUROLEAGUE - Crucial games

MALAGA (Euroleague) - Plenty of teams are still in the hunt for playoff spots with three rounds still to go in the Turkish Airlines Euroleague Top 16.

The only sides going into games on Thursday and Friday to have clinched spots in the next phase of the competition are Barcelona, who top Group E with 11 victories and no defeats, and both Real Madrid and CSKA Moscow (both 9-2) in Group F.

Many a player who is going to feature at the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup will take center stage in this week's games.

On Thursday, two-time defending champions Olympiacos and their Greece national team star Vassilis Spanoulis will be in Spain to face Unicaja Malaga in a battle of 5-6 teams.

The aim is a top-four finish in the group to progress.

Olympiacos breathed some life into their Top 16 campaign and snapped a four-game losing skid with an 89-59 romp over visiting Laboral Kutxa last week.

Suffering from a knee problem and unavailable in their previous three Euroleague contests, Spanoulis returned to the line-up and had 14 points against Baskonia.

"We started to play consecutive finals and won the first, but there are three more," Greece national team guard Evangelos Mantzaris said.

"The good news is that our captain, Vassilis Spanoulis, is back."

Greece internationals Georgios Printezis, a former Unicaja player, and Stratos Perperoglou are questionable for the game because of fitness.

"It doesn't matter what absences they have,” Unicaja coach Joan Plaza said.

"It is a team built for the Final Four while we have, I think, claimed the right - with results and a good attitude - to be in the Playoffs."

Domantas Sabonis, 17, has seen his role grow more important to Unicaja the past couple of Euroleague games.

He played more than 22 minutes in a narrow loss at Fenerbahce Ulker and followed that with a 15-minute effort against Barcelona.

"Domas is a nice surprise," Plaza said to FIBA.com.

"I'm not afraid to play him a lot of minutes against Fenerbahce, to have him among the five starters.

"But he needs time. He's improving, he's beginning to believe that he has plenty of options to play at the top level but he is still young."

Panathinaikos are in fourth place.

They play at Barcelona on Friday.

Barca won the first meeting in Greece, 63-56.

Much was expected of Fenerbahce before the season but the team coached by former Panathinaikos great Zeljko Obradovic is only 5-6 and currently fifth in Group E.

They may have the easiest of run-ins of the teams chasing a third or fourth-place spot.

The team is at home to EA7 Emporio Armani Milan on Friday, at Laboral Kutxa next week and then at home with an Istanbul derby against Anadolu Efes.

The players in the Fener side who could feature at the World Cup are Omer Onan, Oguz Savas, Ilkan Karaman, Emir Preldzic (all Turkey), Nemanja Bjelica (Serbia), Bojan Bogdanovic, Luka Zoric (both Croatia) and Linas Kleiza (Lithuania).

In Group E, the man who has just been put in charge of Turkey's World Cup squad, Ergin Ataman, will lead Galatasaray in a crunch game at Zalgiris Kaunas on Thursday.

Gala, Lokomotiv Kuban and Bayern Munich are each 5-6 and chasing the fourth and final playoff spot in Group F.

The starting playmaker of Galatasaray is Puerto Rico international Carlos Arroyo and he is expected to be at the World Cup.

"Obviously it's a game (against Zalgiris) that we need to win," he said.

Bayern Munich face CSKA Moscow in Russia on Thursday, and Lokomotiv Kuban are at home to Partizan Belgrade on Friday.

Australia international center Aleks Maric is among the many potential World Cup players in the Lokomotiv side and he knows how dangerous Partizan are because he once played for the team.

"Partizan never give up," he said.

"They play with all their heart no matter what the score is, they give their maximum."

Krunoslav Simon, who has made a couple of game-winning three-pointers for Lokomotiv, will play for Croatia at the World Cup and teammate and Lithuania sharpshooter Simas Jasaitis could be poised for a return to his national side.

Should Real Madrid win at Maccabi Tel Aviv on Thursday, they will lock up home-court advantage for their playoff series.

Maccabi will clinch a spot in the playoffs if they win.

Real have Spain internationals Rudy Fernandez, Sergio Llull, Sergio Rodriguez and Felipe Reyes - virtual locks to be in the World Cup squad.

Rudy is one of the top players in Europe and he underlined his status as a Euroleague superstar last week when he led Real to victory over CSKA.

He had 28 points and four steals and earned the Player of the Week award for the second time in the competition this season.

Real also have Croatia international Dontaye Draper and Greece center Ioannis Bourousis.

FIBA