The new EuroLeague season kickoff takes place in Milan on Thursday when Olimpia will face the same opponent it finished last facing, CSKA Moscow. It’s obviously an extremely difficult game, against a team what started its own season by winning the VTB Supercup and the first two league games, against Minsk and Zielona Gora. On top of that, CSKA has all the players available, including Nikola Milutinov, the Serbian center who was injured when Olimpia defeated CSKA in Moscow and Cologne during the last two face-offs. CSKA won a league-leading 13 road games during the last season. Olimpia is coming off a win in Napoli, conquered through a defensive effort. Unfortunately, Troy Daniels, its most dangerous three-point shooter, won’t be available. Nicolò Melli will resume his EuroLeague career, but for several players it will be a debut on this stage. Devon Hall and Pippo Ricci will play a EuroLeague game for the first time, Jerian Grant has never played an international game before.
COACH ETTORE MESSINA – “As it is always the case, CSKA Moscow is a very strong candidate to win the EuroLeague championship. They had a Final Four team, one capable to get very close to win the semifinal game against the eventual winner, and added two great players like Alexey Shved and Marius Grigonis. Other than that, they recovered Nikola Milutinov, who is their defensive cornerstone. Clearly, it is a very difficult game, it is very exciting to start a new EuroLeague season against this kind of opponent, with the aspirations of competing at the level we set for us.”
MALCOLM DELANEY – “It is the first game to start the EuroLeague season against one of the best teams in the league. We just want to come out and establish our identity and keep getting better. It will be an early test to see where we are as a team.”
CSKA MOSCOW – CSKA Moscow, which since 2003 has participated in all the Final Four of the new EuroLeague with the exception of the 2010/11 season, has maintained the same core of the last two years, formed by Daniel Hackett, Will Clyburn, Johannes Voigtmann, Joel Bolomboy, Nikita Kurbanov, plus Toko Shengelia and Nikola Milutinov, the two big signings of the summer of 2020. To this nucleus, CSKA added the Lithuanian shooting guard Marius Grigonis and the super scorer Alexey Shved, who returned to the club where he grew up before going to the NBA and finally to Khimki. The Danish, Iffe Lundberg, who arrived from Zielona Gora (Poland) in the middle of last season, was also re-signed. He has been a teammate of Shavon Shields with the national team. Coach Dimitri Itoudis has been with CSKA since 2014.
THE REFEREES – Miguel Angel Perez (Spain), Damir Javor (Croatia), Mehdi Difallah (France).
THE HINES CONNECTION – Kyle Hines played for CSKA for seven seasons, winning the EuroLeague in 2016 and 2019, reaching the Final Four in all of his six seasons. He has also won the VTB League six times. In all, he played 218 EuroLeague games with 1,808 points scored and 949 rebounds captured for the team.
THE RODRIGUEZ CONNECTION – Sergio Rodriguez played for CSKA for two years, winning the VTB League twice and the 2019 EuroLeague championship. He played 71 EuroLeague games with the Moscow powerhouse, with 852 points scored and 237 assists made. His 13.8 points on average for the 2017/18 season is his career high in the EuroLeague.
THE HACKETT CONNECTION – Daniel Hackett played for two years in Milan between the 2013/14 and the 2014/15 season. He won the 2014 Italian league championship, playing along with Nicolò Melli. At the end of his experience in Milan, he spent two years at Olympiacos and one at Bamberg, before moving to Moscow. With Olimpia he played 42 EuroLeague games scoring 10.5 points per game during the 2014/15 season.
THE MESSINA CONNECTION – Coach Ettore Messina spent six seasons on the CSKA Moscow bench: he led the team six times to the Final Four, winning the EuroLeague title in 2006 and 2008. He left CSKA in 2009 after four years, he returned in 2012 for two more seasons during which he always won the VTB League. In both 2006 and 2008 he was named EuroLeague Coach of the Year. His EuroLeague record as CSKA Moscow head coach is 123-33, for 78.8 percent of won games. While at CSKA, he coached Nikita Kurbanov and Alexey Shved.
THE OPENER – In its 15 previous EuroLeague appearances, Olimpia is 7-8 in the opener. When the team was playing on the road, the record is 3-5. At home, the record is 4-3, with a streak of four consecutive wins, the last one dating back to the 2016/17 season, against Maccabi. There were also three CSKA opening games (record 1-2), but all of them in Moscow, the most recent during the 2017/18 season.
GAME NOTES – Shavon Shields (who has scored in double digit in 18 of his last 19 appearances) is three points shy of 500 for Olimpia, all of them scored during the last season. His high in a single game is 34 points. Kaleb Tarczewski has scored 279 two-point field goals in his EuroLeague career. The all-time leader for Olimpia is Vlado Micov with 281. Sergio Rodriguez has scored 120 threes for Olimpia: the second ever in this list, Curtis Jerrells, has 125. Malcolm Delaney starts this game 26 points shy of 1,500 for his career and is four steals away from the 100-barrier. Nicolò Melli starts the season 10 points shy of 400 scored while playing for Olimpia. Obviously, in terms of number, the most important one is the 300th EuroLeague game that Sergio Rodriguez will play, the ninth player ever to do so (he is also three three-pointers away from 500 for his career).
Post your comment
Visualizza commenti