Olimpia played nine games over the first 20 days of February, eight of which won, but now it is playing the second game over a 12-day span and curiously in the same city where the other one was played, Athens. The suppression of the Unics Kazan game, with potential implications in the standings, eliminated a double round week and brought Olimpia back to Greece in a game full of connections between the two teams including the presence of four former players, two on each side. It will also be Dinos Mitoglou’s first outing against Panathinaikos: he missed the first game in Milan. The suspension of the Russian teams has changed the look of the standings behind the top four teams, with gigantic leaps for Anadolu Efes and Bayern Munich, steps backwards for AS Monaco, new playoff aspirations for Maccabi. Now, there are two rankings, Olimpia is third in both. The fact remains that of the last seven games, only two are at home, Bayern and AS Monaco, five will be played on the road. The first is this one in Oaka. Beyond Shavon Shields’ absence, Gigi won’t be available because of a left knee inflammation that will require some days of treatments.
COACH ETTORE MESSINA – “Every EuroLeague road game is difficult and presents some challenges, we’ll need to stay mentally focused into the game for the entire 40 minutes. Panathinaikos is a team with a leading scorer like Nemanja Nedovic, but has some balance with its ball movement and also in switching from a mano-to-man to a zone defense. We need to restart our journey in a very complicated EuroLeague season. Hopefully, we’ll be able to play a good game.”
DINOS MITOGLOU – “We are going to play against a very dangerous team with very talented athletes and a traditionally protagonist mentality in the EuroLeague.
We need to focus on our game and play hard for 40 minutes. For me personally, it will be a pleasure to see many friends and face a team I will be always grateful for what it did for me and the beautiful memories that I shared with my teammates and coaches.”
PANATHINAIKOS – Daryl Macon jr, who spent last year playing for AEK Athens, is one of the most powerful scorers in the EuroLeague, averaging 13.3 points (56.0 percent from two, 35.2 percent from three) with 3.4 assists per game. He is a 1.88 mt point guard with some valuable experience in the NBA in Dallas and Miami. Nemanja Nedovic, who missed the Milano game, averages 13.1 points while coming off the bench, he is shooting 40.0 percent from three, and dishes 2.9 assists per game. He has scored in double figures in 10 of the last 11 games and lately has scored 25 points against the Red Star and 23 against Zalgiris. Among the guards, Panathinaikos recently added veteran Stefan Jovic (3.5 points and 2.3 assists per game) who may be out due to injury. The Cuban multi-purpose Howard Sant-Roos is a 7.2 point-per-game scorer, who makes 52.3 percent of his two-pointers. The starting small forward would be Ioannis Papapetrou (10.9 points and 3.1 rebounds per game), a Greek international, but he has recently undergone a nose surgery and is expected to be unavailable. Okaro White, a veteran of the European leagues (8.8 points and 4.0 rebounds per game) is normally the starting power forward. The center is Georgios Papagiannis, currently the best rebounder in the entire EuroLeague (7.7 per game). He is also a 9.9-point per game scorer and shoots 65.5 percent from the field. The rotation of the big men is completed by Leonidas Kaselakis, who is averaging 3.4 points per game, and Jeremy Evans (5.8 points and 3.5 rebounds per game on average).
HISTORY VS. PANATHINAIKOS – Olimpia has faced Panathinaikos 23 times in its history. The record is 8-15 (7-14 if we consider today’s EuroLeague only). In Athens, Olimpia has won three times: during the 2011/12 EuroLeague Top 16 phase with a 67-58 score, in 2018/19, 86-83, with 20 points and eight rebounds by Arturas Gudaitis, and in 2019/20, 79-78 with 18 points scored by Vlado Micov. In Milan the record is 5-7. During the 1997/98 season the two teams met in the semi-final of the European Cup. Panathinaikos won the first leg 77-58 but in the return leg, at the Mediolanum Forum, an Olimpia team coached by Franco Casalini took revenge with a memorable 86-61 win that qualified it for the final in which they lost to Zalgiris Kaunas.
THE PANATHINAIKOS CONNECTION – Nemanja Nedovic played for two years in Milan, winning a Super Cup trophy. Overall, he played 32 EuroLeague games scoring 307 points. Jeremy Evans played the final part of last season at Olimpia (11 appearances, 31 points) reaching the EuroLeague’s Final Four. In Olimpia there is Ben Bentil who spent two seasons at Panathinaikos, winning the Greek title twice. Bentil played 54 EuroLeague games for the Greens, scoring 258 points. Dinos Mitoglou played four years with Panathinaikos, appearing in 93 EuroLeague games, with 597 points scored and 370 rebounds captured. Howard Sant-Roos and Kyle Hines played together in CSKA Moscow.
GAME NOTES – Nicolò Melli, who has started every game so far and went in double figures in rebounds in each of the last two games, is the third-best defensive rebounder of the EuroLeague with an average of 4.7 per game, and sixth overall with 6.2. Kaleb Tarczewski is seven field goals away from 300 for his career and five rebounds from 600, all of them with Olimpia. Kyle Hines is eight rebounds shy of 1,600. He is also 42 points away from 3,000 for his career.
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