Olimpia has completed 14 regular season games with a 7-7 record, but with eight road games under its belt. Now it’ll play three straight at home, even though the difficulty degree is enormous: Panathinaikos won the title in 2024, then Olimpia will host Real Madrid, who won in 2023, and Fenerbahce, who won the title in 2025. Meanwhile, Panathinaikos is at the Unipol Forum, a team with huge physicality and offensive rebounding power, featuring excellent specialists like Kenneth Faried, Omer Yurtseven, and Juancho Hernangomez, who could also be joined by Richaun Holmes. Panathinaikos is Kendrick Nunn’s team, with an infinite wealth of individual and collective experience. Olimpia hasn’t yet emerged from the emergency, with players recently returning, others who will return, and many missing players in general. In these extremely difficult conditions, Milan managed to win against Asvel, Olympiacos, and Maccabi, earning three victories over their last five games. The team will have to play beyond its limits, with a lot of heart, also counting on the 10,000 fans that will pack the Unipol Forum, to have a chance in what will be the last EuroLeague game on their home court for three months (starting next week, Olimpia will play at the Allianz Cloud, formerly known as Palalido). Panathinaikos had won four straight games before losing at home last week to Valencia. Olimpia hopes to restore a credible rotation of guards with Marko Guduric return after a one-game absence, then it will need all the energy of its big men to match their opponent’s aggressiveness. Panathinaikos is one of the best teams at defending the three-point line; Olimpia is one of the best at shooting from beyond the arc. The stats indicate that Panathinaikos is 9-1 when it scores more than 85 points, so a superb defense will be needed: when they’ve fallen below that threshold, they’ve lost four out of four games. But it’s a daunting task to contain such a strong and versatile offense.
NOTES – Olimpia Milano-Panathinaikos Athens is scheduled to be played on Thursday, December 11that Unipol Forum in Milan, at 20:30.
REFEREES – Miguel Angel Perez (Spain), Arturas Sukys (Lithuania), Steve Bittner (Germany)
COACH PEPPE POETA – “We’re facing a complete, deep team, with a championship core, coached by a highly decorated coach. Our first priority will be to limit, as much as possible, the Panathinaikos most creative players: Shorts, Sloukas, and Nunn. To achieve this, we’ll need the full support of our fans, who, as they did against Olympiacos, can give us the energy boost that is going to be required. We know we’ll have to deal with an inconsistent roster because some players have played a lot, others are just returning from a period out, and others will be out altogether, but we’ll try to overcome these challenges with our pace and pride.”
ARMONI BROOKS – “Against such a great team, we’ll need to be physically strong from the beginning. Panathinaikos is experienced, has won a lot, and can still win a lot. It will be crucial to keep them from getting into a rhythm early, set the tone, and work as a team on their one-on-one players, on isolation isolating plays. We’ll need to defend hard and trust our teammates’ to make sure their shots will be as hard as possible.”
LEANDRO BOLMARO – “It’ll be a tough game, we have a great deal of respect for Panathinaikos and we undestand how good they are. We’ll need to play with energy, patience, physicality, and help each other, especially on defense, because against their guards or the physicality of their big men, a team effort will be necessary.”
REFEREES –
INJURY REPORT –
COACH PEPPE POETA- “Vorrei “.
PANATHINAIKOS OUTLOOK – Panathinaikos is a team built to win the title after winning it in 2024 and reaching the semifinals in 2025. The roster has immense depth at every position, so even injuries are managed without too many problems. Coach Ergin Ataman constantly changes the starting line-up, alongside the irreplaceable Kendrick Nunn, who is averaging 18.8 points and 3.5 assists per game. Nunn is an incredibly talented guard, shooting 60.3 percent from two and 39.1 percent from three. He has 193 NBA appearances under his belt and averaged 12.3 points per game. Around him, the guards are TJ Shorts, last year’s MVP in Paris, who has made seven starts for 17.3 minutes on the court, 8.4 points, and 3.4 assists per game; Kostas Sloukas, who rarely starts but averages 20.4 minutes per game, scoring 10.1 points and 5.6 assists per night, impressive numbers considering his playing time; Jerian Grant, who is a defensive specialist in the department, even though his 5.9 points per game are the result of 42.9 percent three-point shooting (he also averages 3.0 assists per game). At small forward, Turkish player Cedi Osman boasts 476 NBA games and 9.3 points per game. This year, he’s averaging 13.4 points per game, 4.0 rebounds, and a 44.2 percent three-point shooting accuracy. Panathinaikos also has Marius Grigonis at the position, who has made eight appearances but has seen limited playing time after a long injury layoff, and Nikos Rogkavopoulos (5.6 points per game), who was acquired from Baskonia in the summer and scored 40 points with 11 three-pointers in a Greek league game last Sunday. Sharing the minutes at power forward are the Spaniard Juancho Hernangomez, another player with 339 NBA games played, in his third season at Panathinaikos with 8.9 points and 7.1 rebounds per game (2.4 offensive), and Dinos Mitoglou (7.0 points, 3.4 rebounds per game, 59.2 percent two-point shooting), with the former usually starting and playing almost 27 minutes on average. At the center position, Panathinaikos has had the biggest problems: Matthias Lessort has not yet returned, so the starter is Richaun Holmes (489 NBA games), who, however, due to injury, has only been used six times, averaging 8.7 points (74.1 percent from two) and 4.3 rebounds, including 2.7 offensive ones. His presence in Milan is in doubt. However, Omar Yurtseven, who spent three years in Miami with 113 appearances, has returned and is averaging 7.9 points (62.8 percent from the field) and 4.8 rebounds, including 2.1 offensive boards. Finally, the latest signing Kenneth Faried, who spent last year in Reggio Emilia but had 472 NBA appearances through 2019, was even named Player of the Month for November after five games in which he averaged 11.2 points and 6.6 rebounds per game, shooting 60.0 percent from the field. When necessary, Panathinaikos uses defensive specialist Panagiotis Kalaitzakis, who is also a Greek international, and also the emerging center Alexandros Samodurov, born in 2005.
THE PANATHINAIKOS CONNECTION – Jerian Grant spent in Milan the 2021/22 season, helping the team win the Italian Cup and the Italian championship. While in the Italian Cup, he was barely used, his impact was huge during the playoffs. He appeared in 36 Italian league games, 11 in the playoffs. In the EuroLeague, he had 26 games, and 42 points scored. Dinos Mitoglou, over the same season, played 13 EuroLeague games with 99 points scored for Olimpia before his season was interrupted by a suspension. Lorenzo Brown has spent one season for Panathinaikos, the last one, with 238 points scored over 38 games.
