In the fourth EuroLeague week with two games to be played, Olimpia will stay at home, starting with a Panathinaikos Athens team which has just convincingly beaten Alba Berlin on its home-court. Olimpia, in turn, is coming off a precious win in Monte Carlo and is chasing its tenth win of the season against a team capable to win two of its last three games, losing only to Moscow and during the last period has also won the derby with Olympiacos in the Greek league. The game won in Monaco confirmed the defensive nature of this Olimpia which is 8-1 when it has allowed 74 points or less (the only defeat has matured at 74 points allowed, in St. Petersburg) and is 0- 4 when it has allowed more than 74 points. It is a speciale for some individual players, although the player who everybody was waiting for, Dinos Mitoglou, is obviously not available. But Ben Bentil is, and he was able to score 17 points during the first two outings wearing the Olimpia jersey. His contributions along the ones of the other big men will be crucial against a team featuring Georgios Papagiannis, a former NBA lottery-pcik who is leading the league in rebounds, had had four double double games and is also the third-best shot-blocker. The game will be played on Tuesday 14 December in Mediolanum Forum. Tip-off time is 20:00.

COACH ETTORE MESSINA – “Panathinaikos is a team coming off some very good performances, they are big and are able to use efficiently their big men. both offensively and defensively. Their zone defense, sometimes a match-up zone, allowed them to win the Athens derby in the Greek league. So, the game will be a complicated one. Once more, controlling the boards and create open shots will be crucial to try to win the game.”

KYLE HINES – “We face an historical Panathinaikos team, who is very dangerous. In the EuroLeague every game is difficult, regardless. We have to pay attention to every detail during a marathon season. For us it is always important to use our collective esperience to manage the schedule, the pressure and any situation.”

THE REFEREES – Sreten Radovic (Croatia), Juan Carlos Garcia (Spain), Saulius Racys (Lithuania).

PANATHINAIKOS – Daryl Macon jr., who was at AEK Athens during the last season, is one of the most powerful scorers in the competition, averaging 15.7 points (67.3 percent from two, 39.2 percent from three) with 3.9 assists per game. He is a 1.88 mt. point guard who his having his debut season in the EuroLeague but has NBA experience in Dallas and Miami on his resume. Nemanja Nedovic, who was out against Alba due to an injury, is averaging 9.5 points per game off the bench, but has scored 32 points combined in the last two outings. The rotation of the guards includes Kendrick Perry, in Ljubljana last season, and the multipurpose player Howard Sant-Roos, a Cuban guard who is averaging 7.1 points per game and is shooting at 62.8 percent from two. The small forward is Ioannis Papapetrou (11.3 points and 3.4 rebounds per game), the Greek international, in his third consecutive season over a double-digit average. The starting power forward normally is Okaro White, a veteran of the European leagues (7.6 points and 3.7 rebounds per game). The center is Georgios Papagiannis, currently the best rebounder in the EuroLeague (8.1 per game), who is having a stellar time lately. In the last three games, he has scored 46 points with 22-for-30 from the field and has grabbed 32 rebounds. The two starting big men are spelled is by Leonidas Kaselakis, 17 points, a career record against Alba in the last round, and by Jeremy Evans (5.5 points and 3.3 rebounds per game)

HISTORY VS. PANATHINAIKOS – Olimpia has faced Panathinaikos 22 times in its history. The record is 7-15 (6-14 if we consider today’s EuroLeague only). In Athens, Olimpia has won three times: during the 2011/12 EuroLeague Top 16 phase with a score of 67-58, in 2018/19, 86-83, with 20 points and eight rebounds by Arturas Gudaitis, and in 2019/20, 79-78 with 18 points scored by Vlado Micov. In Milan the record is 4-7. During the 1997/98 season the two teams met in the semi-final of the European Cup. Panathinaikos won the first leg 77-58 but in the return leg, at the Mediolanum Forum, an Olimpia team coached by Franco Casalini took revenge with a memorable 86-61 win that qualified it for the final in which they lost to Zalgiris Kaunas.

THE PANATHINAIKOS CONNECTION – Nemanja Nedovic played for two years in Milan, winning a Super Cup. In all, he played 32 EuroLeague games scoring 307 points. Jeremy Evans played the final part of last season at Olimpia (11 appearances, 31 points) reaching the EuroLeague Final Four. In Olimpia there is Ben Bentil who spent two seasons at Panathinaikos, winning the Greek title twice. Bentil played 54 EuroLeague games for the Greens, scoring 258 points. Dinos Mitoglou played four years with Panathinaikos, appearing in 93 EuroLeague games, with 597 points scored and 370 rebounds captured.

GAME NOTES – Sergio Rodriguez has now scored 518 threes in his career and has reached Vassilis Spanoulis as the second ever. With 845 points, he also became the third Olimpia scorer ever in the EuroLeagu, the second-best in the modern era behind Vlado Micov. Rodriguez has made at least one three in eight of his last nine games and also at least two in his last four appearances. Kyle Hines has scored 1,136 two-point field goals in his career and is within one of Ante Tomic’s second place (1,137). Nicolò Melli has grabbed at least five rebounds in nine of his last 10 games.

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