On November 14, Olimpia Milano achieved one of the most surprising victories in recent years, defeating Olympiacos Piraeus 88-87. It was the second game coached by Peppe Poeta—who wasn’t yet officially the team’s head coach—and was achieved with a severely depleted roster, missing Josh Nebo, Shavon Shields, and Zach LeDay, three-fifths of the starting line-up. Olimpia even managed to survive the 52 points combined by Tyler Dorsey and Alec Peters. Now, it travels to Piraeus to close out the regular season after a very up and down EuroLeague, where impressive feats (such as the defeat of Olympiacos, but also the two wins over Panathinaikos and the one over Real Madrid) have been thwarted by a few missed opportunities. The last game of the season is actually the first of a period that will have to be used to best prepare the team for the Italian league playoffs. A win would secure first place in the regular season for Olympiacos. They would finish second if they were caught by Valencia—traveling to Dubai—although the difference between the two places is minimal. Armoni Brooks and Pippo Ricci are going to be two of the 41 players who played every regular season game. For this last game Bryant Dunston will be available again after his hand injury. Marko Guduric is excused for family reasons. Zach LeDay is not with the team for load management.
NOTES – Olympiacos Piraeus-Olimpia Milano is going to be played on April, 16th, at 20:15 Italian Time in Athens.
THE REFEREES – Emilio Perez (Spain), Mehdi Difallah (France), Alberto Baena (Spain).
COACH PEPPE POETA- “We’re wrapping up a EuroLeague season that, in terms of results, fell short of our ambitions. Overall, we’ve always been competitive, even with significant absences. In a high-level competition where the differences in quality are small, the key is to take advantage of the opportunities that arise. We’ve managed to do so sometimes—for example, against Olympiacos—but we haven’t won the games we needed to win to advance. We’re finishing against one of the competition’s favorites and with a few players out: our goal is to use this game to improve.”
OLYMPIACOS PIRAEUS OUTLOOK – Coming off four consecutive Final Four appearances without a win, Olympiacos has secured home-court advantage in the playoffs, so to win the trophy from now on, they will only need to win in Athens, where the Final Four will be played (but in the enemy’s place, OAKA). To achieve this, they have also done everything on the transfer market, as demonstrated by the additions during the season of players such as Cory Joseph (866 career NBA games), Monte Morris (416), and center Tyrique Jones, acquired from Partizan Belgrade. These players have bolstered a roster composed of players who have been in Piraeus for years. In addition to Joseph and Morris (who will be out vs Olimpia), with Keenan Evans lost to injury, the point guard is Thomas Walkup, the only EuroLeague player with more assists (5.9) than points (5.0), a great, experienced defender, in his fifth year at Olympiacos, his eighth in the EuroLeague. Tyler Dorsey is the sharpshooter, a Greek-American who has played 107 games in the NBA and also played for Maccabi and Fenerbahce. This has been his best season, averaging 17.0 points per game on 40.1 percent three-point shooting and 101 threes made, more than anyone else in the EuroLeague. For comparison: last year he played 200 minutes in 20 games. The forwards rotation ais rounded out by Frank Ntilikina, a French international acquired from Partizan, but previously in the NBA (he was selected No. 8 overall by the Knicks and then spent seven years in the U.S.). He is a versatile and physically gifted player who is averaging 4.7 points per game on 38.8 percent three-point shooting. The other shooter is French small forward Evan Fournier – a silver medalist at the last Olympics, 12 years spent in the NBA with 707 appearances and 13.6 points per game – who is averaging 11.1 points per game but had scoring outbursts of 36 points against Fenerbahce and 32 against Zalgiris. Among the forwards, Coach Georgios Bartzokas can count on Shaquielle McKissic, a powerful veteran (3.9 points per game) who has been with Olympiacos for seven years, and of course the emerging Tyson Ward (7.3 points and 3.1 rebounds per game), who was with Paris Basketball last year. The rotation continues with left-handed defender and shooter Kostas Papanikolau, one of the great Greek players of his generation with 426 EuroLeague appearances, all at Olympiacos except for those made in the 2013/14 season that he spent at Barcelona. The power forward is former MVP Sasha Vezenkov, returning to Olympiacos after a brief NBA stint. A highly efficient star, averaging 19.4 points and 6.7 rebounds per game, he enters the final round as the league’s leading scorer and also leads the league in rating. Alec Peters, his backup, is an exceptional shooter at the power forward position (6.9 points per game on 39.1 percent from three and 64.6 percent from two). Center Nikola Milutinov, one of the competition’s best offensive rebounders, is having one of the best seasons of his career, as the numbers show: 10.5 points per game on 68.7 percent shooting from the field and 6.9 rebounds per game, including 3.3 offensive rebounds. Milutinov is supported by Donta Hall (7.1 points and 4.7 rebounds on average), a vertical player, as is Tyrique Jones (7.7 points and 4.2 rebounds per game after transferring from Belgrade), who won’t be available for this game.
OLYMPIACOS PIRAEUS CONNECTION – Zach LeDay played 30 games for Olympiacos, scoring 292 points during the 2028/19 season. Bryant Dunston played two years for Olympiacos from 2013 to 2015, with 58 games played, 505 points scored, and 283 rebounds grabbed.
GAME NOTES – Zach LeDay just became the second-highest scorer in Olimpia’s history in Europe’s premier competition. Here are the top five before the final round: Shavon Shields 2,101; Zach LeDay 1,299; Bob McAdoo 1,292; Vlado Micov 1,232; Nicolò Melli 1,152. Here are the rankings by appearances: Nicolò Melli 180; Shavon Shields 158; Kaleb Tarczewski 156; Pippo Ricci 154; Kyle Hines 144. Zach LeDay has made at least on three-pointer in 14 straight and 19 of his last 20 games. Armoni Brooks has made at least one three-pointer in 28 straight and 31 of his last 32 games.
