Olympiacos like three points, Panathinaikos promises

The journalistic point of view is that the pre-season games have nothing to do with what we will see in winter. It’s not quite right as the coaches test from the test matches what they want their teams to follow in the official matches. However, since a major event like the EuroBasket only ended five days ago, it is still too early, first for conclusions and then for forecasts.

However, the simultaneous launch of two tournaments involving the champion Olympiacos and Panathinaikos cannot go unnoticed. A week before the Super Cup clash, the two eternals made their first appearance (on live TV), the eyes of their friends were mostly on the “youngsters” during the victories against Efes (for PAO, in OAKA) and bei Hapoel Holon (for Olympiakos in Nicosia) we saw basketball nuggets that Zoran Radonic wants to play with the “Greens” and Giorgos Bartzokas with the “Red-Whites” this year

Panathinaikos found a playmaker

As Alexandros Trigas wrote earlier in the day, the image of Panathinaikos in Pavlos Giannakopoulos will not be correct. And how can it be that the injured Marius Grigonis and the “new” team player Mateusz Ponitka, who landed on Eleftherios Venizelos at the end of the 40th minute, did not play in the first game. And if the rest of the report is to be believed, the “Greens” even expect a four.

However, the promises of PAO against the European champions, even if Efes rarely takes part in preparatory games, it usually takes a long time to find a rhythm and that throughout the year, were many and certainly left the audience satisfied to OAKA.

With a new coach, hailing from the Serbian School of Good Defense, who simplifies basketball through partnerships on the floor, Panathinaikos seemed to have solved the biggest problem of the past year. He found two reliable point guards who seem ready to give the entire team a boost.

Nate Walters at the start with his quick executions, good ball handling and good creation and then Paris Lee with his instant reflexes, great pressure on the ball and equally good passing performances banished the good morning confusion that we saw throughout the game last season.

Panathinaikos fans watched the team’s two centers grab 28 points and 12 rebounds, meaning Arturas Gudaitis can take his place on the floor when Papagiannis is on the bench, while Derrick Williams offers experience, shooting and passing as well an independent personality on the court is court.

That five plus Giorgos Kalaitzakis, who showed a lot more… reassured than his brother, had a double-digit score, proof of the plurality of Panathinaikos, which will however be completely different with Grigonis and Ponitka on his squad, given that we are talking about players who have the ball in their hands.

Andrew Andrews is a weak link who appeared to be a click behind for Euroleague levels, while PAO’s plus points include his resistance to the demarcation Efes was expected to make in the third quarter after conceding… 61 points (and no strong resistance) in both sections of the first half.

The first goal of Panathinaikos is to become competitive and more balanced again. It seems he’s on the right track, but of course it will take time to see him at the absolute level of readiness. Essentially, Papagiannis is the only main player left compared to last year’s team, as Bohorides (with Grigonis-Ponitka present) will have an even smaller involvement, while Hougaz and Mantzoukas will play a much smaller role.

In other words, we are talking about a completely different team, with a new coach, a new philosophy that will have its ups and downs until it finds a rhythm, steps and above all a psychology, something sustained by victories, even at a friendly level…

Three points and dry bread for Olympiakos

It’s a bit easier at Olympiacos as the main core has stayed the same compared to last year, although most aren’t quite in tune with this year’s side yet due to the Eurobasket.

What did we see in Cyprus against tough champion of Israel Hapoel Holon? The “Red-Whites” shoot… 42 three-pointers (16-shot) without the presence of Kostas Sloukas on the pitch, who stayed in Athens for treatment as he is still suffering from the bone swelling he suffered during preparation The national team. There aren’t many games where Olympiacos have twice as many hat-tricks as the two, but it’s not certain that will be the case throughout the season

On the other hand, with so many players threatening from outside the line, Bartzokas wants to use the long shot, and it makes sense that the three-pointer that defines developments in modern basketball is one of the great weapons of this year’s champion team .

Alec Peters, who started the first half with airballs and missed another 3-pointer, really warmed up in the second half as he went into both corners, catching all the extra passes, quickly scored 15 points and disrupted Guy Gudes’ zone after the In the third to fourth minutes Olympiakos made it very difficult, which proved the 36:36 draw that the two teams found in front of the locker room.

The Piraeus had started with three threes from Walkup, one from Papanikolaou and one from Kanan, but they couldn’t threaten in the racquet and didn’t seem to move the ball as they would have liked.

The three-pointer continued to rain in the second half as McKissick struck from the corner to extend the lead to +10 and Sasha Vezhenkov scored for the first time in six tries just before the game entered the final minute. But victory didn’t come from there. When Holon came through 67-65, Bartzokas threw again in the match walkup and fall and got what he wanted on defense, with the key player being the counter-type Giannoulis Larentzakis.

The Israelis suffered, they lost the balls, they stopped making lob passes to the heart of the racquet and Olympiacos, who made 10 steals and 5 blocks but also dished out 27 assists, turned the match from -2 to +11 on shortened procedures .

It’s clear that Bartzoka’s Fal doesn’t want to be a burden as the Frenchman is coming off injury and has played more than anyone in Eurobasket, so Tarik Black and Joe Boloboi started occupying the middle position. They still have a lot to learn, especially in working with the team’s smaller players, although together with Fal, who made the difference on the floor, they form a trio that shields Olympiakos well in the racquet.

The Olympiacos coach started with McKissick as the most important ‘two’ as Kanan seems to be looking for rhythm and the shots that will (if) put him in the top five. We haven’t seen the Greek-American Pope, who is probably not yet ready to follow the full pace of such (even friendly) games that have a lot of tension and face-to-face duels.

In general, the “red-whites” seem to want to play high-tempo basketball again this year, they’ve got weapons up their sleeves in terms of rotation, but we’ll have to wait a while for synchronization old and new, since the preparation – like and for most top-class teams with national players who competed in the EuroBasket – began with the half, and only now with the whole squad …