Ettore Messina: It will be important to have concentration for the entire 40 minutes

The season home opener represents for Olimpia, primarily, the opportunity to celebrate Gigi Datome and his career after the three seasons he spent in Milan, winning five trophies and helping the team return to the Final Four, in 2021. The ceremony had to be rescheduled because of postponement of the inaugural home game against Maccabi Tel Aviv. Datome will be inducted into the club’s Hall of Fame. The game is very significant itself, though. Olympiacos last season finished first in the regular season and missed the championship by one shot, against Real Madrid. The game is also the first of two this week, the other one being in Madrid against the defending champions. So, the schedule is brutal for Olimpia, coming off a tough loss in Istanbul, after an overtime, playing without three guards. Only one of them will be available against Olympiacos, Devon Hall. His presence means more options, however. Finally, it will be game number 393 in the EuroLeague for Kyle Hines: as soon as he will step on the court, he will become the players with most appearances in history, putting Paulius Jankunas behind for good. Next goal: to become the first ever to play 400 EuroLeague games. It is going to be a night for the ages before a crowd expected to surpass 10,000 people. Tip-off time will be on Tuesday, 17, at 20:45.

THE REFEEREES – Matej Boltauzer (Slovenija), Leandro Lezcano (Argentina), Carlos Cortes (Spain).

COACH ETTORE MESSINA – “We face the runner ups from last season and so everybody will be extremely motivated to show they belong to this level. For us, it will be important to have concentration for the entire 40 minutes to play defense, take our rebounds and offensively to pass the ball with accuracy, which is necessary to overcome a very physical defense. Our goal is to keep improving and to do it every day in order to reach the standard we want to reach. It will an important night to honor once again Kyle Hines and his fantastic journey.”

KYLE HINES – “We know which kind of game we have to expect. We know Olympiacos well, they are very aggressive and very physical. So, we need to raise the level of our aggressiveness and physicality to be up to the challenge. We are coming off a painful loss in Istanbul and we want to play a good game and get the win in front of our home crowd. For me personally, it is a huge honor, especially given the many great players that have taken part of this competition over the years. And as an American player the achievement is probably much more significant. So, it is special for me.”

OLYMPIACOS OUTLOOK – Over the summer, Olympiacos lost two key players from last year team: Sasha vezenkov, the reigning MVP, moved to the NBA, to Sacramento; Kostas Sloukas, point guard and best sixth men of the competition, moved crosstown, to Panathinaikos. Two players, on the contrary, returned to Piraeus after some different experiences: guard Nigel Williams-Goss, coming from Real Madrid as a fact has replaced Sloukas; Nikola Milutinov (who’s averaging 11.5 points and 5.5 rebounds per game), after a stint with CSKA Moscow, returned to take possession of the starting center spot. Many core players returned starting with the defensive ace Thomas Walkup (averaging 15.5 points per game) and continuing with the scorer Isaiah Canaan (11.5 points per game, 55.6 percent on threes), the powerful Shaquielle McKissic (who should be missing from the roster in Milan), the shooter Alec Peters, who is averaging 14.0 points per game and shooting 57.1 percent on his threes, and the other center Moustapha Fall, plus Kostas Papanikolau, clearly one of the most experienced players in the entire EuroLeague. Among the newcomers, there are Luke Sikma, a very experienced power forward coming from Alba Berlin, and Ignas Brazdeikis, a Lithuanian who was raised in Canada and has some NBA in his past, who’s coming from Zalgiris where he averaged 11.6 points per game, last season. The group of the local players involves particularly the guard Giannoulis Larentzakis. Georgios Bartzokas, in his second stint with Olympiacos, is still the head coach, of course.

SERIES HISTORY – – There have been 25 previous games between these two teams in the EuroLeague. Olimpia have won eight times and lost 17. In Piraeus the record is 11-2 for Olympiacos. Olimpia won in Piraeus on March 6, 2014, 88-86, with Keith Langford scoring 20 points in that game including the decisive three-pointer. The second win dates to the first leg of the 2018/19 season, in which Olimpia won with a resounding 99-75. At home, Olimpia has won on January 29, 2009, 76-74, top scorer Luca Vitali with 15 points; during the 2013/14 season, when Olimpia won 81-51 with 29 points by Keith Langford; during the 2015/16 season prevailed 99-83 with 15 points and six rebounds by Davide Pascolo; during the 2018/19 season, 66-57 with 27 points scored by Mike James; during the 2020/21 season in which it won 90-70 with 27 points by Kevin Punter; and last season, 81-62 with Billy Baron scoring 18 points. There are two games prior to the existence of the EuroLeague. During the 1996/97 season, Olympiacos won 87-84 at home; Olimpia won in Milan 73-71. So, the overall record is 18-9 for the Greek team.

THE OLYMPIACOS CONNECTION – Christos Stavropoulos, Olimpia’s general manager, spent 19 years at Olympiacos, winning the EuroLeague twice, among other things. Both triumphs featured Kyle Hines who played for Olympiacos for two years before moving to CSKA Moscow. During his two years at Olympiacos, Hines played 53 EuroLeague games scoring 503 points and grabbing 286 rebounds. Olympiacos coach Georgios Bartzokas also coached the same team under Stavropoulos. Finally, for Coach Milan Tomic is an homecoming too. He spent almost his whole career in Olympiacos as a player, a winner of the 1997 EuroLeague championship and eventualy as a coach too.

KYLE HINES NOTES – Kyle Hines’ next game will be number 393 of his EuroLeague career and will move him to the solitary first place in the All-Time list surpassing Paulius Jankunas. Hines has played 111 EuroLeague games so far for Olimpia, fourth overall behind Kaleb Tarczewski, Nicolò Melli and Vlado Micov. Finally, he is 10 defensive rebounds away from 1,000 for his career, a milestone surpassed by only six players so far, the latest of which is Nicolò Melli.

NICOLO’ MELLI NOTES – The countdown can start: Nicolò Melli is nine appearances away from reaching Kaleb Tarczewski’s 156 as the All-Time leader for games played in the EuroLeague for Olimpia. He is the all-time club leading rebounder. The Captain is five defensive rebounds away from Ante Tomic’s 1,025 and a place in the Top 5 of all time.

NIKOLA MIROTIC NOTES – Nikola Mirotic is one start away from 200 for his career. Only 13 players have started at least 200 games for their EuroLeague career, one of them is Nicolò Melli with 205. Mirotic has started 88 percent of his games so far. Mirotic’s index rating of 38 in Istanbul is one point lower than his career-high of 39, which dates back to the Round 14 of the 2021/22 season when he played for Barcelona against Real Madrid. In that game he also set his career-high for points with 31. As far as Olimpia’s history, his 38 is the third-best index rating value ever behind the amazing 47 recorded by Samardo Samuels during the 2014/15 season in Nizhny Novgorod and the 41 made by Shavon Shields in Game 5 of the EuroLeague playoff against Bayern Munich, 2020/21 season.

JOHANNES VOIGTMANN NOTES – Johannes Voigtmann’s 21 points in Istanbul are his most in Olimpia (19 last year in Bologna) and the most since the Round 10 of the 2021/22 season when he scored exactly 21 at Barcelona while playing for CSKA Moscow.