By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
Maccabi Tel Aviv didn’t have an antidote for the Nikola Milutinov force that ravaged the Yellows on both ends of the floor. The Serbian center registered a humongous double-double of 20 points and 20 rebounds to lead Olympiacos to a win over the Israeli side that completed a 2-0 regular-season sweep.
“He’s a great player. He’s been a great player for years,” Maccabi big man Roman Sorkin told Eurohoops not long after his several battles against Milutinov inside the paint. “He had a great game today. We didn’t do our job on him of course. A lot of respect for him.”
Milutinov got nine of his rebounds on offense, seven of them before halftime. This contribution helped Olympiacos survive some rough shooting in the first half with 20 second-chance points at the break out of the team’s total of 42, before the triples began to fall from the third period and onward.
“One of the best big men in the EuroLeague and probably the best offensive rebounder in the history of EuroLeague. We’re going to try to stop him next time we play,” Sorkin also mentioned.
Maccabi star guard Wade Baldwin, who played alongside Milutinov at Olympiacos during his maiden EuroLeague campaign in 2019-20, also recognized his former teammate as a historically potent rebounder.
“What you have to know about Milutinov is that he’s the best offensive rebounding big in the history of EuroLeague, in my opinion,” Baldwin said to Eurohoops. “He gets paid a high salary to be a dominant rebounder and when he plays a lot of minutes, that’s what he supplies for his team. That’s what happens.”
In the absence of his fellow frontline mate Moustapha Fall, Milutinov spent 31:31 on the floor and made the most out of them, posting just the fourth 20+20 performance in the modern EuroLeague era.
Milutinov joined a quite exclusive group of players with 20+20 performances in EuroLeague that includes Mirsad Turkcan (27 points and 23 rebounds in a CSKA Moscow 88 – 83 win over Buducnost in 2002), Spencer Nelson (23 points and 20 rebounds in a 92 – 85 win of GHP Bamberg over Benetton Treviso in 2005) and Antonis Fotsis (22 points, 24 rebounds with Dynamo Moscow in a 68 – 65 win over Benetton in 2007).
For Milutinov himself, these 20 rebounds marked a new career-high, passing a display of 19 he had at Olimpia Milano when he played for CSKA Moscow in 2020-21. In that game, a 91 – 87 victory for CSKA, the 29-year-old big man had collected 16 (!) of his boards on the offensive end.
While Baldwin and the rest of Maccabi players were well aware of Milutinov’s particular strength to command the glass and how damaging it can be if not contained, their efforts against him proved to be futile.
“You know this guy is a 3-pointer shooter. You know this guy is a scorer, you know this guy is a defender. And you know what Milutinov does. He showed up today. He did his job. And he had a big game,” Baldwin added.