A big defensive effort and controlling the tempo will be two crucial aspects of Olimpia’s game in Vitoria. The team coached by former Valencia’s head man, Joan Penarroya, is averaging almost 88 points per game in the EuroLeague, but more than 99 points are produced inside the friendly confines of Fernando Buesa Arena. On its home court, Baskonia has never scored less than 92 points and had a 116-point outing against Maccabi, a season-high. Baskonia has won four games out of five (the only loss was inflicted by Olympiacos), with impressive margins. Last week, Zalgiris was defeated by twenty points. It is going to be a road game made even more complicated by the adversities Olimpia is going through. Three players (Kevin Pangos, Shavon Shields and Stefano Tonut) are out with injuries, a fourth is out with illness (Gigi Datome), a fifth – Billy Baron so far has hit 12 threes out of 20 – just came back from another injury and another one, Tim Luwawu-Cabarrot, has spent in Milan only the last 10 days. On Thursday, December 1st, tip-off will take place at 20:30.
REFEREES – Olegs Latisevs (Latvia), Mehdi Difallah (France), Tomiaslav Hordov (Croatia).
COACH ETTORE MESSINA – “Regardless of the players missing that won’t be a part of the trip, from now on each and every game should be approached as a final. We know that Vitoria is a team well organized by Coach Penarroya, they like to play fast and are able to shoot at a high clip. However, for us is important to approach the game with the same attititude normally reserved for a playoff’s Game 5″.
NICOLO’ MELLI – “A very difficult game is awaiting us, against a team healthy and historically very good on its home court. We are coming off a negative streak, but we are working hard to improve. In Vitoria, we’ll do whatever it takes to play a solid game in order to try to bring home a win and get back on the right track.”
BASKONIA – Baskonia is averaging 87.9 points per game, shooting 60 percent from two as a team. Markus Howard has been the most productive player so far, averaging 16.5 points per game with an impressive 44.0 percent three-point shooting. Pierria Henry, who came back in Vitoria a few weeks ago, is averaging 10.2 points per game and 5.5 assists. Darius Thompson is adding 12.2 points per game, 5.7 assists and is also shooting 48.5 percent from three-point range. There are two more double-digit scorers, Matt Costello (10.7 points and 4.4 rebounds per game) and the Estonian big man Maik Kotsar (10. 8 points per game over slightly more than 20 minutes, while making 73-1 percent of his two-point attempts). The Serbian National Team player Vanja Marinkovic is contributing 6.7 points per game, often starting, and he is shooting 68.8 percent from two; veteran Rokas Giedratis on top of scoring 8.8 points per game he is grabbing 5.3 rebounds. Tadas Sedekerskis (7.1 points per game) is another rotation player, like Sanders Raieste, Dani Diez and Daulton Hommes, a stretch power forward who’s averaging 7.4 points per game. The other center, Steven Enoch, appeared only once so far because of an injury, but he is back and will available for the game.
HISTORY VS. BASKONIA – Olimpia is leading the all-time series 11-10. In Milan, Olimpia is leading 8-3, on the road it is 3-7. Milan has prevailed three times in Vitoria, the first took place during the 2013/14 season, 83-65 with 17 points scored by Curtis Jerrells; in 2017/18, Olimpia won 83-82 with 16 points each for Andrew Goudelock and Jordan Theodore, who made the winning drive) and finally last season it was a 78-64 win with 12 points and 10 rebounds by Shavon Shields, 13 points were scored by Malcolm Delaney and 12 by Devon Hall.
THE BASKONIA CONNECTION – Shavon Shields has spent two seasons in Vitoria, winning the Liga in 2020. Overall, he has played 59 EuroLeague games with 569 points scored. He also took part in 63 Spanish league games with 711 points scored. Obviously, he won’t be able to play. Johannes Voigtmann has played three seasons in Vitoria with 100 appearances in the EuroLeague and 876 points scored. Assistant coach Peppe Poeta was a player for Vitoria during the 2013/14 season.
GAME NOTES – Billy Baron has scored 991 EuroLeague points so far, nine away from reaching 1.000. Kyle Hines is one rebound shy of 400 grabbed for Olimpia. He is 4th all-time behind Kaleb Tarczewski, Nicolò Melli and Arturas Gudaitis. Nicolò Melli has cleared the 200 two-point field goals made and is now 7th overall in a list led by Kaleb Tarczewski with 304. Next game he will play will be the 250th of Melli’s EuroLeague career, third all-time among Italian players (Gigi Datome has 269; Daniel Hackett 253) and second for games played with Olimpia behind Kaleb Tarczewski’s 156 appearances. Naz Mitrou-Long ha scored in double digit in each of his first five EuroLeague games.
