The first dreaded double-game week of the season is upon us. Olimpia is facing the week on the road, going to Belgrade first and Munich later. Partizan, coming back to the EuroLeague, features three former Olimpia players, the winningest coach in the competition, Zeljko Obradovic, a huge home-court advantage, and the desperation of a team who started losing its first two games. Apparently, Partizan showed some defensive limitations because it allowed 203 points combined over the first two games, but it is a lie. In Vitoria, Partizan lost after an overtime after allowing 89 points to the opponent, including the tying three at the buzzer. For Olimpia, this is the first of three straight road games, against a team it has not faced in a decade, in a packed house and after a tough loss to swallow, at home, after an overtime against Alba Berlin. Olimpia came back from 17 points behind against Alba and came back from 12 points down in Villeurbanne, but it won that game. Obviously, starting the game on a good note is required, just like shooting a little bit better from the arc, after converting 31.5 percent of the three-point attempts so far. The game will be played on Tuesday at 20:45 in Stark Arena.
REFEREES– Dani Hierrezuelo (Spain), Emin Mogulkoc (Turkey), Ioannis Foufis (Greece).
COACH ETTORE MESSINA – “This is a great opportunity for us to reconnect with two guys that gave us a lot in the past, Kevin Punter and Zach LeDay. We have the utmost respect for Partizan and for Coach Obradovic. We are aware that a very hard game is waiting for us. Defending well on their dribble drives and protecting ourselves against their transition offense will be key factors, along our ability to adapt to the hot atmosphere that we’ll experience in the arena.”
KYLE HINES – “Coming off a tough home loss at home, this week is going to be an important one for us, with two road games in a row. In Belgrade, we’ll play a difficult game, in one of the best atmospheres in Europe and for them it will be the EuroLeague home opener. But in this early part of the season for us is more important to focus on ourselves, on how to improve step by step, each and every day.”
BILLY BARON – “You know Partizan will always play very hard. Every time I have played them, they have been aggressive from the first to the last minute. Kevin Punter is playing really well at this time, and we have to focus on him, but obviously not only him.”
PARTIZAN – Partizan has been admitted to the EuroLeague as a wild-card team. It has the support of one of the most rabid supporters in Europe, a fanbase which has produced over 11,000 season tickets for this season. With Zeljko Obradovic returning to the bench last year, in the summer Partizan added five players from other EuroLeague teams, small forward James Nunnally, whom Obradovic coached at Fenerbahce for two years, the Greek international Ioannis Papapetrou from Panathinaikos, journeyman center Mathias Lessort (19 points and 12 rebounds in Vitoria), the Serbian national team sharpshooter Danilo Andijusic, who was in Monaco a year ago, and finally the explosive guard Dante Exum (22 points in Berlin), coming from Barcelona, and also in the NBA for five seasons (Cleveland and Utah). They were joined by players returning from last year such as Kevin Punter (19.5 points per game so far, 15-for-15 from the line) and Zach LeDay (18.0 points and 5.5 rebounds per game after two outings), as well as some prospects such as Israeli Yam Madar (a second-round choice by Boston in 2020), Tristan Vukcevic, from Real Madrid, Slovenian guard Gregor Glas and the Serbian center Balsa Koprivica, who played at Florida State and was picked in the last NBA draft by Charlotte. Partizan also can count on Aleksa Avramovic, a former Varese and then Malaga explosive guard, and forward Alen Smailagic who has been for three years in the Golden State Warriors organization. Avramovic and Smailagic are considered out for the game against Olimpia.
PARTIZAN CONNECTION – Dante Exum last year played in Barcelona with Brandon Davies, who was also Aleksa Avramovic’s teammate during the 2015/16 season in Varese. Nicolò Melli and Gigi Datome played on Fenerbahce for Zeljko Obradovic. Datome won the EuroLeague championship alongside James Nunnally. And Nunnally is one of the three Partizan players who have played for Olimpia. Nunnally came to Milan during the 2018/19 season scoring 14.1 points per game over 10 EuroLeague games. Kevin Punter and Zach LeDay contributed to clinch the 2021 Final Four berth. Punter scored 515 points over 36 appearances in the EuroLeague. LeDay had scored 360 points in 36 games including the winning basket against Bayern in Game 1 of the playoffs. Punter and LeDay have won a Super Cup and an Italian Cup in Milan.
OBRADOVIC Vs MESSINA – The Belgrade game also features the two most decorated coaches in EuroLeague history. Zeljko Obradovic of Partizan and Ettore Messina currently have 863 games coached in the EuroLeague, combined, considering only the modern era, from 2000/01 to today. It would be more if we counted the games coached in the same competition but before 2000. However, nobody has coached more games than Obradovic (456) and Messina (407). And no one has won more games (313) than Obradovic. Messina has 286, but with a higher percentage (286-121) of games won, 70.3 percent against 68.6 percent. And again Coach Messina has won the modern EuroLeague three times against Obradovic’s four but considering what happened before 2000 there are five more wins for the Cacak’s coach and another for Messina, who first became head coach in 1989 at the age of 30. Obradovic became the Partizan head coach in 1991 at 31. With such numbers it would be natural to imagine an enormous number of head-to-head games. Instead, there are just 25 of them, considering all the competitions (14-11 in favor of Obradovic). Twice they faced each other at the helm of their respective national teams (1-1) with Coach Messina in his last season with Italy in 1997 and Obradovic in his debut with Serbia. It was the 1997 European Championships. When Obradovic coached in Treviso for two years, they met five times (4-1 Messina, the record), but not internationally. In 1998, when Coach Messina won his first European title, Obradovic led Benetton to the Final Four but was eliminated by AEK Athens in the semifinals. During the years Obradovic spent with Badalona and Real Madrid, the two never crossed paths. They faced each other in two different EuroLeague championship games when one coached Panathinaikos and the other was leading CSKA Moscow. They met twice when Obradovic moved to Fenerbahce: in 2013/14 the Serbian coach won the two face-offs, but did not make it to the playoffs, contrary to what Messina did in Milan with CSKA. The following summer, with Coach Messina working for the San Antonio Spurs, the paths remained separate, until the latter returned to Europe to coach Olimpia (1-1 in the 2019/20 season). Belgrade will therefore be the 26th games between these two great coaches.
GAME NOTES – Nicolò Melli has cleared the 1.800-point barrier. He has 1.812 now. He is also two offensive rebounds shy of 300 for his career (he sits in 25th all-time place). Olimpia’s Captain has also grabbed 896 defensive rebounds, as surpassed Viktor Khryapa and he is now six rebounds away from Mirsad Turkcan’s sixth place. He has finally 1.194 total rebounds, 13th ever. Shavon Shields has made at least one three in 10 of his last 11 games played. He is now one point away from Alessandro Gentile’s 5th place all-time in Olimpia history within the top European competition, 824 vs 825. Johannes Voigtmann has just grabbed the 1.000th rebound for his EuroLeague career. Kevin Pangos has made at least one three in his last 30 games played. Against Alba he went over the 1.500-point barrier. Now, he has 1.509.
