Messina: We’ll face Olympiacos with humility

The EuroLeague resumes and Olimpia immediately faces a road game of the highest level of difficulty in Piraeus. Olympiacos is 10-1 at home and defeated Olimpia by 21 points in the first game between these two teams. In the standings, Olimpia is third and Olympiacos is fourth. Milan has three more wins, but Olympiacos have played one game less. It is a crucial battle for the seeding. Olimpia has won its last five road games, a club record in the EuroLeague (last year Olimpia won four in a row), but it is going to play on one of the toughest courts in Europe, just check the numbers. Olympiacos is second-best in the league in two-point shooting, at 56.4 percent, while Olimpia’s defense normally holds the opponets at 50.4 percent. This will be a crucial aspect of the game, just like three-point shooting, since Milan is keeping opponets at 33.3 percent, but in the previous encounter Olympiacos made 18 threes and won going away. For Olimpia, a cycle of three road games over the next four is coming up, but in general it will have to play six road games over the last 10. Meanwhile, with 17 wins, it has already secured a regular season with at least 50 percent of the games won. With the new format, it has only happened last year when it reached 21 in the end. Both teams are coming off a big weekend. They both won the national cups, with Olympiacos defeating Panathinaikos in Crete coming from behind in the fourth quarter. Tip-off time on Thursday is 20:45 Italian time.

COACH ETTORE MESSINA – "We know we are going to face an excellent team, very well prepared as always by Coach Bartzokas. We are fully aware of how good they are, because in Milan they destroyed us in every aspect of the game. Both teams are coming off winning their national cups and will be determined to prolong their good run. We’ll approach the game with humility: it will be crucial for us to defend well against their movement and their pick and roll, and even more important will be attacking the switching defense with good balance."

NICOLO’ MELLI – "It is obviously a very difficult game, against one of the best teams so far. Their home court advantage is historically huge and Olympiacos defeated us badly in Milan, the first time we met them. So we want to try to do a lot better this time, riding the confidence we have been building throughout the season."

OLYMPIACOS PIRAEUS – Olympiacos has built its record by protecting the home court: in Piraeus, it is 10-1, the only defeat suffered against Red Star. Like almost all EuroLeague teams, it went through a difficult stretch when it lost four consecutive games, so much so that in the last 10 its record is 5-5, but still Olympiacos has won the last two games before the break, one in Vitoria and then at home against Efes because of a Kostas Sloukas’ winning three from the corner. The starting lineup is the most consistent in Europe: Thomas Walkup starts as the point (6.1 points, 2.9 assists on average, 57.7 percent from two), Tyler Dorsey as guard (13.4 points, first scorer on the team, 40.9 percent from three), Kostas Papanikolau (6.3 points per game, 57.1 percent from two) and Sasha Vezenkov (12.8 points, 5.7 rebounds on average, 63.0 percent from two, 39.6 percent from three) as the forwards, and Moustapha Fall (8.0 points, 4.9 rebounds per game, 66.1 percent from two) as a center. Kostas Sloukas, one of the competition’s greatest point guards over the last decade, comes off the bench, averaging 24.1 minutes per game, 11.4 points and 4.3 assists. Four other players are important, coming off the bench: the swingman Shaquielle McKissic (6.1 points, 56.1 percent from two), guard Giannoulis Larentzakis (5.9 points per game, he was crucial with 18 in the Milan game), forward Livio Jean-Charles (3.8 points, 58.7 percent from two) and center Hassan Martin (4.2 points, 3.3 rebounds per game). To these must be added the veteran Georgios Printezis, used for 11 minutes per game with 4.4 points on average. He is another historic player on this team and this competition.

GAME NOTES – Nicolò Melli, who has started 24 games out of 24 so far and grabbed 21 total rebounds over the last two outings, is the fifth-best defensive rebounder of the EuroLeague with an average of 4.5, and the eighth-best overall with 6.0. With the 10 rebounds he grabbed in Kaunas he has exceeded 400 for Olimpia over his EuroLeague career. He is now 17th all-time, one rebound away from Mike Batiste (1,117 vs 1,116). He also became the 10th-best defensive rebounder in history with 841, two fewer than David Andersen who is ninth. Malcolm Delaney has surpassed 500 points scored for Olimpia in Belgrade, now he has 555. In Olimpia’s last five road wins, Malcolm Delaney has scored 70 points, 14.0 points per game, with a high of 20 in Kaunas, and 14-for-28 from three. Three times he’s made at least four threes. Kaleb Tarczewski is seven field goals away from 300 and six rebounds shy of 600 over his EuroLeague career.

THE DUEL – In this game the first and second ever for two-point field goals scored in history are facing each other. Georgios Printezis is the leader with 1,186, Kyle Hines is second with 1,171. As for Hines, he is also 12 rebounds away from his 1,600th career rebounds and 15 away from the all-time third place currently belonging to Ioannis Bourousis.