Barcelona 2011: Another one to remember

May 22, 2013

Just about everyone expected 2011 to be FC Barcelona Regal's year to repeat as champion in front of its hometown fans. Those expectations were not unusual, especially considering how dominant Barcelona had been the previous season and for most of this one. However, It took a historic Euroleague team, Panathinaikos, to prevent any hope of that happening by eliminating Barcelona in the playoffs.

In the end, we were treated to another classic finals matchup between Maccabi Electra and Panathinaikos – the two most successful Euroleague team since the turn of the century. Maccabi played an exciting brand of basketball under Coach David Blatt that season. I cannot recall any team that was so focused and capable of blowing their opponents out and not letting up at all in the manner that the Israeli champs did that season. They fought and battled for every single possession.

Maccabi pressured and aggressively trapped the ball all over the court with electrifying guards Jeremy Pargo and Doron Perkins leading the way. It was an entertaining team to watch as it played uptempo and had the powerful All-Euroleague center Sofoklis Schortsanitis under the basket playing the best ball of his career. Chuck Eidson was the glue that held everything together as he really did do EVERYTHING on the court. David Blu and Guy Pnini were players that you could not give any daylight to unless you wanted to get burned from long range as they did an excellent job of spacing the floor and creating space for their teammates. And Pnini especially stood tall in filling a major role after Perkins went out with a season-ending injury in the playoffs.

Unfortunately for Maccabi, they were up against a very determined Panathinaikos team, which many had doubted early in the season. Obradovic was attempting to win his eighth Euroleague title! He had a core group of veteran players at his disposal that knew what it took to win and always came up with big plays in clutch situations – namely Dimitris Diamantidis and Mike Batiste. And that’s after Nick Calathes stepped up big in the playoffs and in the semifinal game against Montepaschi Siena.

Not surprisingly, defense and its patented pick-and-roll offense were the keys for Panathinaikos in the final. Diamantidis and Batiste were not alone on the court. Romain Sato, Drew Nicholas and Antonis Fotsis came up big in this final. One of the main factors for the Greens’ success over the years was how unselfish it was as a team and that not one player is worried about his personal stats. Such was the case in the final game with nine different players contributing in the scoring column, thanks in part to Diamantidis, who – along with Pargo – set a new Euroleague title game record for assists with 9.

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POSTED BY

Johnny Rogers - Euroleague.net

DATE:

Thursday, May 10, 2012