By Niki Bakouli
From the first day of March, when we got to know who is going to play against who for the Euroleague playoffs till yesterday, when Barcelona played its last official game before meeting Unics Kazan, the best eight teams of Europe played 37 games, all together.
Check out which one was the busiest, which one was the most successful, which one was shocked by surprises and which one is more… fresh than everybody else (hint: the one which gave the minimum number of games).
CSKA Moscow (4 wins in 5 games)
vs.
Gescrap BB (2 wins in 4 games)
CSKA Moscow’s program included five games from their last day of Top 16 till Wednesday, when they will host Gescrap Bilbao. They lost just one game and to be more exact here are the results. On March 3rd, they won Enisey (74-53) for the PBL and four days later, they lost at Nymburg (79-60) for the VTB League. For the same league at 10/3 they dominated at Azovmash (62-37) and three days later (13/3), they won Unics at Kazan (57-75) for the PBL. Their last game was for the VTB League (16/3): they won Lokomotiv Kuban 88-73 at Moscow.
At the same time, Gescrap Bizkaia Bilbao played four games (all for Liga Endesa) and they had 50% success. On the 4th of March, they lost at Bilbao Arena from Barcelona (65-72) and three days later (7/3) they lost again from Mutua Joventut at Badalona (91-67). On March 11th, they hosted Fuenlabrada and they came back to win 92-81. Finally, last Saturday they won against Estudiantes at Madrid (69-71) with Kostas Vasiliadis hitting 4/4 free throws down the stretch.
Montepaschi Siena (3 wins in 3 games)
vs.
Olympiacos (3 wins in 4 games)
Italy’s champs played just three games at a 21 day interval from the end of Top 16 to next Wednesday’s game. Οn March 4th, they won Angelico Biella 77-68 at Palaestra, on March 7th they won at Varese (65-77 to Cimberio) and at their last game (15/3), they won Braga Cremona 79-61, on the court that they will play their first two games against Olympiacos. Siena is four wins ahead from the teams that are tied in the second place of the Italian league.
On the other hand Olympiacos is one win away from the second Panathinaikos in the Greek League. You see, on March 4th, they won at Drama (55-73 over KAOD), on March 7th they won Ikaros at SEF (100-63) and last Friday they won Panionios 73-64, at Piraeus. But in the 10th of March they lost in the final of the Greek cup from Panathinaikos (70-71)
Panathinaikos (5 wins to 5 games)
vs.
Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv (7 wins to 7 games)
In the interval of the Euroleague schedule Panathinaikos didn’t lost any time and won the Greek Cup. On March 10th they won 71-70 over Olympiacos, but that wasn’t the first game they played a game after the end of the Top 16. As a matter of fact, they won on 3/3 PAOK (at OAKA, 85-65), at 7/3 they won… near OAKA (at neighboring Marousi 56-96) and after their first title, they won the no 4 of the Greek league’s standings (14/3 Rethymno 105-78). Their closure was last Friday 64-97 win at Peristeri. They remain behind Olympiacos in the Greek league standings, with just one victory keeping them apart.
And now let’s see how many things Maccabi had to do in just three weeks: first of all on March 3th, they won at Cedevita (77-83) for the 22nd game day of the Adriatic League, two days later (5/3) they won at Holon (77-82 over Hapoel), for the 19th game day of the Israeli League, on March 10th they won KK Zagreb at Nokia Arena (88-68) for game the 24th game day of the Adriatic League and one day later (!) they hosted Rishon Lezion (90-73), for the 20th game day of the Israeli League. The next day they flew to Slovenia, where they played (13/3) against Helios Domzale (53-71, for the 25th game day of the Adriatic League). Few hours later they flew back to Tel Aviv where they hosted a 101-66 win vs. Red Star Beograd (for the 23th game day of the Adriatic League) and last Saturday they won Radnicki (92-76), for the 26th game day of the Adriatic League. If you lost count, they gave seven games – five of them just in the last week- and they won all of them.
F.C. Barcelona Regal (2 wins to 4 games)
vs.
Unics Kazan (2 wins to 5 games)
Barcelona Regal was at the top of Liga Endesa’s classification, when they reached Euroleague play offs. Now, they have Real Madrid searing the top with them, because they lost two games. Their story begins with a victory (65-72 at Bilbao, on March 4th) and four days later they lost at Palau to Banca Civica Seville (63-66). Add to that an other L (away from home to Gran Canaria, 93-90) on March 11th. On Saturday they hosted Blusens Monbus Obradoiro, who was trailing just 45-41 late in the third period. That was when Boni Ndong scored 4 points in a row… and pretty much the game was actually over (71-58).
Unics had its own share of failures. On March 4th they lost (for PBL) to Triumph (73-76) and three days later they lost at Novgorod (Nizhny won 82-77) also for the PBL. Their next task was for the VTB League (10/3) where they managed to win (66-55) Krasnie Krylia, but they lost again (13/3) to CSKA (57-75) for the PBL. Last Friday, they were able to “kill” Zalgiris (77-73, VTB League), although the Lithuanians had the lead entering the fourth quarter. Samoylenko’s triple gave them a 59-61 lead and they never looked back.