By Evangelos Papadimitriou / info@eurohoops.net
CSKA Moscow, Fenerbahce, Real Madrid and Zalgiris Kaunas are the top teams in this season’s EuroLeague, but only one will be crowned champion on Sunday night (20/5).
A few hours before the first jump ball, Eurohoops outlines the profiles of the teams, analyzes their course and presents the player who had a key contribution in getting them all the way to the end of the road.
Place in the regular season: 1st
Record: 24-6
Playoffs: 3-1 over Khimki with a home court advantage
Stats: 89.23 points (55.8% in two-point shooting, 41.7% in three-point shooting, 82% in free throws), 33.23 rebounds, 17.79 assists
Roster: Dimitris Itoudis’s team didn’t have a hard time finishing in first place in the regular season. Right from the start, they were the big favorites and they proved it on the court. Their 6 defeats (only one at home, by Fenerbahce) speak for themselves.
In fact, it happened in perfect harmony, since after 15 rounds they had a 12-3 record, something that was repeated in the second half of the season!
CSKA’s offense was ablaze once again this season, with 89.23 points per game! Their percentages in two-point shooting (55.8%), three-point shooting (41.7%) and free throws weren’t bad either, numbers that proved their players’ killer instinct.
In the playoffs, they went up against the other Russian team of the competition, Khimki, the two of them perhaps offering the series with the most quality, but it was Dimitris Itoudis who smiled in the end and not Georgios Bartzokas.
In Belgrade, they will be facing Real (18/5, 22:00) in the second semifinal.
Key players: Nando De Colo and Sergio Rodriguez were the best players for the Muscovites. The Frenchman played in 29 games of the regular season and averaged 16.9 points and 3.9 assists. He only managed to play one game in the playoffs and he never saw it to the end since he got injured.
And this is where the Spaniard comes into the equation, since he covered Nando De Colo’s gap more than adequately with 19.3 points and 6.5 assists in the series against Khimki, while he also became the first player in the history of the playoffs to have a game with 20+ points and 10+ assists.