By Lefteris Moutis
Nick Calathes came to Greece in the summer of 2009, but until last March he hadn’t justified the expectations for the next big thing in Greek basketball in the point guard position; until he played against FC Barcelona and Juan Carlos Navarro in the Euroleague quarterfinals. His game has been transformed completely, he became starter and Obradovic based Panathinaikos on him!
A year after the scenario seems to be played again…. Panathinaikos faces Maccabi in the Euroleague quarterfinals, won the first game 93-73 and Calathes played like last year without having the motivation against a great personal rival: “I don’t want to hurry, but we know as a team to be ready the right moment, like we did against Barcelona. We would like to do now the same thing or even better”.
David Blatt fell into the trap and gave him some free shots at the start of the game. And Calathes punished him! Obeying Obradovic’s spirit, the young guard spoke about “the team” and not himself: “We played very well and tried to have a lot of intensity in our efforts from the first moment. We made very good passes and shots, but the key was our defense, which helped us to score some easy baskets. It was an amazing game; we played against a very good team, one of the most difficult opponents in Europe and hope to play again like this on Thursday. The first game gave us confidence for the next”.
He doesn’t speak so fluently Greek yet, but he sure knows the Greek proverb “they suffered and learned”. Olympiacos “suffered” last year and Panathinaikos… wants to “learn” this season. Some hours before the second match, Calathes says “we don’t have in mind what happened last year in Olympiacos-Siena series (after a blow out in the first game, Siena reacted and won the series 3-1). It was a different game, different teams, players, coaches … In the second game we have to come out with the same passion, be stronger and be ready for a new Maccabi. They will show us something different, but we ‘ll show also something different in our game”.