The last EuroLeague regular season game is scheduled to be played at the Unipol Forum against Baskonia, a game with no standings implications even if an Olimpia win would be the 17th, a number which normallu would have guaranteed access to the post-season, in addition to interrupting the streak of four consecutive defeats that precluded the chances of extending the season. Baskonia – eliminated for some time from contention – is a team in good shape, coming from a large victory over Asvel and in the last two home games it has scored 223 points overall, showing its offensive potential.
The game will start at 20:30 on Thursday, 10 April.
REFEREES – Emin Mogulkoc (Turkey), Boris Ryzhyk (Ukraine), Arturas Sukys (Lithuania).
COACH ETTORE MESSINA– “We are closing a very difficult EuroLeague season. Unfortunately, we had the entire roster available for the first game and one more time early in the season, only. We have won some good and important games and we lost some of them and ultimately the last few losses doomed our chances to clinch a playoff or play-in berth. We are aware of how much we disappointed our fans, our ownership and, more than anybody else, ourselves. The team will keep working hard. Our goal right now is to regain confidence and recover players to get ready for the Italian league playoffs. However, we fully intend to finish the season on a good note before our people in Milan.”
BASKONIA OUTLOOK – Coached by Pablo Laso, who with 262 games won is third all-time in the EuroLeague in this statistic right behind Zeljko Obradovic and Ettore Messina, Baskonia has had an up-and-down season in which it has shown above all great strength in rebounding and great defensive presence in the paint but has been betrayed offensively by its three-point shooting, 34.2 percent, 15th overall, despite the presence for example of one of the best long-range specialist in the competition, Markus Howard, 230 three-point attempts this season with 33.9 percent accuracy. Howard averages 12.2 points per game, has started17 times, while in the other game he has acted as the team’s sixth man behind the other two guards, Trent Forrest (9.8 points and 4.7 assists on average), who was decisive in the Vitoria game, and Kamar Baldwin (7.1 points and 3.7 assists per game) who however had surgery on his right hand and is currently unavailable. Ognjen Jaramaz will have minutes behind Forrest and Howard. The wings are the Frenchman Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot (10.0 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game), the Greek Nikos Rogkavopoulos (9.7 points and 3.9 rebounds per game, on 43.7 percent three-point shooting), the Lithuanian Tadas Sedekerskis (7.5 points and 4.8 rebounds on average, but also 45.5 percent shooting from three) and finally Chima Moneke, a player with great energy, the team’s top scorer (14.2 on average), the best rebounder (6.1), 64.7 percent on twos. The centers are Donta Hall (8.7 points and 5.5 rebounds per game, 71.0 percent from two), a player with a great verticality in the paint, a shot blocker (1.2 per game) and defender, Khalifa Diop (4.0 points per game with 61.9 percent from two), plus Luka Samanic, who was signed during the season (8.5 points per game).
THE BASKONIA CONNECTION – Shavon Shields played two years in Vitoria winning the Liga ACB in 2020. Shields played 59 EuroLeague games in Vitoria, scoring 569 points. He also played 63 games in the Spanish league with 711 points. Fabien Causeur played in Vitoria four seasons between 2012 and 2016, with 89 EuroLeague appearances and 745 points scored. Nico Mannion began the last season in Vittoria before moving to Varese. Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot played 24 games in Olimpia in the 2022/23 season with 226 points scored.
SHAVON SHIELDS NOTES – Shields will be out for the season-ending game. He finished his seventh EuroLeague season with at least one three-pointer in 19 of his last 20 games, scoring in double figures in nine of his last 10 games and becoming Olimpia’s All-Time record holder for free throws made with 269 (the previous record holder, with 268, was Arturas Gudaitis).
NIKOLA MIROTIC NOTES – He enters this game with a 21.3 personal rating. In Olimpia’s history, the record for average rating during the course of a singe season is 20.2 (Mike James, 2018/19). Mirotic is already the fifth Olimpia player to finish a EuroLeague season scoring over 500 points: the record is held by Mike James (595, 2018/19), followed by Kevin Punter (515, 2020/21). Zach LeDay had 513 before this last game. Mirotic had 508. Bob McAdoo had 504 in 1987/88. Mirotic currently has 1,449 rebounds, three less than Georgios Printezis with a chance to enter the top ten of all time.
ZACH LEDAY NOTES – LeDay has scored in double figures in 14 of his last 15 games. His 513 points are two fewer than Kevin Punter had in 2020-21, so he can pass him and become the second-best all-time Olimpia scorer in a season (though Mirotic is only five points behind him). LeDay has already set career highs for points in a season (446 in 2022-23) and personal rating (549 in 2022-23, he currently has 630), but most importantly, he has shattered his own records in three-point shooting and free throws. In 2020-21, he made 33 threes, his career-high, this year he has already made 49; in 2022-23, he made 93 free throws, this year he has 160 already.
