Semifinal Game Notes: Olympiacos vs. Barcelona Regal
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Game notes, Olympiacos Piraeus
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Game notes, FC Barcelona Regal
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Olympiacos has drawn more fouls than any other team in the Euroleague so far with an average of 23.9 per night.
Coach Dusan Ivkovic has used 17 different players this season and 15 of them have started at least one game. Vassilis Spanoulis leads the team with 17 starts; Pero Antic, Kyle Hines and Kostas Papanikolaou are the only Reds to appear in all 20 games.
Ivkovic has coached Barcelona center Kosta Perovic on the Serbian national team. Together they won the silver medal at EuroBasket 2009 and reached the semifinals at the 2010 FIBA World Championships. Olympiacos forward Marko Keselj was also a member of the world championships squad.
Vassilis Spanoulis needs 5 more points to catch Unics Kazan shooter Henry Domercant for 25th place on the Euroleague’s career scoring charts. Spanoulis enters the Final Four with 1,501 career points.
Spanoulis has made 12 straight free throws in Euroleague action.
Panagiotis Vasilopoulos is the only player on the Olympiacos roster that played in the 2010 Euroleague final against Barcelona.
Martynas Gecevicius was a teammate of Barcelona swingman Chuck Eidson for the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons at Lietuvos Rytas. Together they won the Eurocup, Baltic League, Lithuanian League and Lithuanian Cup.
Lazaros Papadopoulos was a teammate a Barcelona forward Pete Mickeal briefly at the start of the 2004-05 season with Dynamo Moscow. Mickeal left the team in November.
After an adjustment period following his midseason signing, Acie Law has turned into a key weapon for Olympiacos. He averaged 2.2 points, 0.4 rebounds, 0.8 assists and a performance index rating of 1.4 in his first five Euroleague games with the Reds. In the five games since, Law has compiled averaged of 10.2 points, 2.6 rebounds, 4 assists and a 13.6 index.
Andreas Glyniadakis registered his best scoring night in the Euroleague against Barcelona back in November 2004. Glyniadakis, then with AEK Athens, amassed 16 points on 5-of-7 shooting in Barcelona, but the hosts won 69-57.
Five different Olympiacos players – Dorsey, Keselj, Papadopoulos, Pelekanos and Printezis – have played previously in the Spanish League.
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Barcelona has the best defense in the Euroleague this season and is on pace to set a Euroleague record by allowing only 61.5 points per game. The full-season record belongs to CSKA Moscow, which allowed just 63.1 points per game for the 2008-09 season, during which it edged Barcelona 78-82 in the semifinals at the Final Four in Berlin.
Juan Carlos Navarro has made at least 1 three-pointer in each of his last 11 Euroleague games.
Navarro needs just 2 more steals to reach 200 for his Euroleague career. He would become the ninth player to achieve that feat.
Navarro, the competition’s career leading scorer, is also on the verge of moving into first place for most baskets made. Navarro enters the Final Four having connected on 922 field goals, which is second to only Nikola Vujcic with 928.
Navarro is 5 three-pointers away from becoming just the second player to make 400 career triples. The Euroleague’s career leader in three-pointers made is Gianluca Basile of Bennet Cantu with 415.
Navarro was named the 2010 Euroleague Final MVP after scoring 21 points to lead Barcelona to an 86-68 win over Olympiacos in Paris.
Erazem Lorbek is tied with CSKA big man Darjus Lavrinovic and former Maccabi big man Maceo Baston for 11th place on the Euroleague’s all-time shots blocked list with 100 career blocks. CSKA forward Viktor Khryapa is ranked 10th with 101 rejections and former Montepaschi and Khimki center is ninth (102).
Lorbek and Marcelinho Huertas are the only Barcelona players to start every Euroleague game thus far.
Huertas was a teammate of Olympiacos center Lazaros Papadopoulos at Fortitudo Bologna during the 2008-09 season.
Huertas set his Euroleague career high in scoring with 23 points against Olympiacos in a Top 16 game in January 2010. Huertas and his team at the time, Caja Laboral, lost 85-89.
Pete Mickeal has made 16 straight free throws in Euroleague action.
Mickeal’s first European team was Greek club Peristeri, for whom he played the 2003-04 season. He was a teammate that season of current Olympiacos swingman Michalis Pelekanos.
Boni Ndong has rejected at least 1 shot in five straight games.
Victor Sada was a teammate of Olympiacos forward Marko Keselj at Spanish club Akasvayu Girona during the 2006-07 season. They helped the team win the FIBA EuroCup title.
Kosta Perovic recorded one of the best games of his Euroleague career against Olympiacos. In March 2007, Perovic, then with Partizan Belgrade, tallied 19 points, 11 rebounds and drew 12 fouls en route to a career best performance index rating of 33. Nevertheless, Olympiacos won 79-75 at Peace and Friendship Stadium.
Fran Vazquez, who is the Euroleague’s career leader in blocked shots, tied a career high with 4 rejections against Olympiacos in the 2010 Euroleague title game in Paris.
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Euroleague.net
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