Olimpia will try on Thursday evening in Istanbul (6.30 pm Italian time) to replicate its great game of last Tuesday. After beating Fenerbahce, it faces Anadolu Efes, a team that it met 28 times in the EuroLeague era, but against which it has never won on its court. Traditionally, it is a matchup favorable to the home team who have won 22 times out of 28 previously, but all the road wins belong to Efes. Olimpia lost in Istanbul in the weirdest ways. There is no need to recall Zoran Planinic’s three from basket to basket in 2014. Olimpia is coming to the Sinan Erdem Sports Hall off a big win over Fenerbahce, the fourth road win of the season, while Efes returned from Moscow, where it was beaten by the hottest team in the league (for CSKA it was the ninth consecutive win). This is the last of four consecutive road games for Olimpia, who have won two of the previous three and is 4-3 away from home. Efes is strangely 2-4 at home (but 5-3 in enemy territory), it has lost the last three games, but the streak includes the game in Valencia where a buzzer-beating jumper by Klemen Prepelic proved to be decisive.
COACH ETTORE MESSINA – “Efes played at a very high-level last season and now is coming off a loss in Moscow that for sure made them nervous. As a consequence, we’ll face extremely motivated talent, and that’s not a good news for us. We’ll need great mental consistency, we’ll have to play great defense and hopefully we could shoot with good percentages from the field.”
KEVIN PUNTER – “We need to play one game at a time, work hard one game at a time, keep doing what we do and try to raise our defensive efficiency, like we did the last time. We need to replicate the defensive game we had against Fenerbahce, because Efes is a very experienced, solid team.”
THE REFEREES – Sreten Radovic (Croatia), Joseph Bissang (France), Carlos Peruga (Spain).
ANADOLU EFES – Runner-up in 2019, first in the standings in 2020, Efes is one of the big favorites to win the competition and is also the team that has changed less from last season. 98.3 percent of the playing time has been taken by players who were at Efes last year. The only exception is the guard Erten Gazi, who played in the U.S. at Fordham. The rest of the team has been kept intact: Shane Larkin and Vasilje Micic are the guards, with Rodrigue Beaubois playing as an alternative to both at both spots, Kruno Simon and James Anderson are the small forwards, Adrien Moerman and Chris Singleton are the power forwards, with the latter playing also at the center as an alternative to Bryant Dunston, the EuroLeague all-time leading shot-blocker, and to the more offensive-oriented Tibor Pleiss. Some local players complete the rotation, especially defensive specialist Dogus Balbay and center Sertac Sanli.
THE EFES CONNECTION – Krunoslav Simon played in Milan for two seasons, winning the Italian championship, two Italian Cups and a Super Cup in which he was named MVP after scoring 25 points in the championship against Avellino. This is his fourth season at Efes. Andrea Cinciarini and Kaleb Tarczewski are among his former teammates. Bryant Dunston played for one year in Varese in 2012/13, then at Olympiacos for the current Olimpia general manager, Christos Stavropoulos. Malcolm Delaney and Chris Singleton played together at Lokomotiv Kuban, and they reached the EuroLeague Final Four in 2016.
NOTES – Gigi Datome has an open streak of 23 free throws made. Kevin Punter has scored a three in each of his last 20 EuroLeague games. Kyle Hines has grabbed in Istanbul, last night, his offensive rebound number 600 for his career.
