The big time of the Euroleague playoffs has arrived for Olympiakos!
The “red and white” face tonight (21:45, Novasports 4, News Bulletin 247, sport-fm.gr) at the packed SEF on Fenerbahce of Dimitris Itoudis, Nick Kalathy, Tyler Dorsey and Costa Antetokounmpo, with the aim of starting the quarter-final series ideally and taking the first and most important step of qualifying for the Final-4 of this year’s event!
A pioneer in the regular season of the EuroLeague with a record of 24-10, Olympiacos became the first Greek team to reach this achievement, entering… the playoffs!
With a big “weapon” at home, in which they “counted” just three losses in 17 games of the regular season and are running a winning streak of 19 games in the league and Europe (their last home defeat was against Red Star at the end of last December) , the Piraeus want to maintain their very good momentum, so as to make the coveted 1-0. Olympiacos comes to tonight’s match having overcome with two easy victories the obstacle of Aris in the first round of the Basket League playoffs, while Giorgos Bartzokas will have all his players available for tonight’s match, together with They did who has been excluded from the continuation of the Greek championship.
“We want to be calm, we want to play with intensity. We know it’s a big challenge to be in a second straight Final Four. We know it won’t be easy at all. We have great respect for our opponent. In no way do we underestimate the series”said the coach of Olympiakos ahead of tonight’s big match.
On the other hand, Fenerbahce finished its Euroleague regular season efforts in 8th place, with a record of 19-15. The results of the last competition and its defeat by Red Star in Belgrade dropped it on Olympiakos and now it will have to face the pioneer, if it wants to be in the Final-4. In a mediocre for that season, they have won just 7 of their 17 away games in this year’s competition, while they have an away win in Turkey and Europe to celebrate since February 23 last (8 consecutive defeats since then).
As far as the competitions are concerned, Dimitris Itoudis has several problems to deal with, since the injured were put out of action Devin Booker, Nemanja Bielica and Samet Gegikwhile the Wilbekin, Goodrich and Birchen they traveled to our country, but their participation in the match is doubtful.
Olympiacos was the winner in both meetings of the two teams this year, even prevailing by large margins. Initially, it won with an impressive 94-67 in SEF for the 13th game, while it also passed with 93-73 from the “Ulker Sports Arena” of Istanbul. Referees for tonight’s match will be Miguel Angel Perez (Spain), Mendy Difalla (France) and Tomislav Hordov (Croatia).
In the other game of the evening, Barcelona will host the Zalgiris at “Palau Blaugrana” (21:00, Novasports 5). In the second place of the regular season with a record of 23-11 the Catalans, against the Lithuanians who had to wait until the last game to ensure their presence in the playoffs, celebrating their 19th victory of the season and finally taking the 7th place.
In their two meetings during the regular season, Zalgiris had a narrow 73-72 win in Kaunas, while Barca prevailed 73-74 in Barcelona.
Source: Sport Fm
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