The Greek champion and the Italian champion will meet again after splitting a pair of regular season games. Montepaschi finished ahead of Panathinaikos in Group B with one more victory, but the Greens’ had a better time in the Top 16 to earn home-court advantage for the playoffs. Montepaschi is looking to make a second straight appearance at the Final Four, while Panathinaikos wants to return after winning the 2007 crown. The teams know one another remarkably well and not just because of their previous matchups this season. Several players on both sides have been teammates at the club and national team levels. Assuming that Montepaschi’s All-Euroleague big man Ksistof Lavrinovic, who is sidelined with a broken hand, does not return earlier than expected, the key to this series could rest with how Siena’s frontline handles Panathinaikos’s much deeper rotation.

Panathinaikos team page Panathinaikos team stats Official website Greece: Greens blast Egaleo Blog: Stratos Perperoglou Diamantidis, hurt before playoffs

Montepaschi Siena team page Montepaschi Siena team stats Official website Italy: Siena leads one more week Lavrinovic, out 30 days Siena wins Italian Cup!

Quarterfinal Analyst MIKE BATISTE With his long white socks and pull-up dunks, Mike Batiste of Panathinaikos has been one of the Euroleague's most spectacular and consistent performers even before he and the Greens tookk the 2007 title together. Two seasons later, the memory of that triumph is all the motivation Batiste needs going into the best-of-five playoffs against Siena. "To go back to the Final Four and win for the second time, I don't want anything to get in the way of that," Batiste told Euroleague.net. "And right now I have Siena in the way."

Quarterfinal Analyst RIMANTAS KAUKENAS Last year, due to injury, his team had to reach the Final Four without him. Now, veteran Rimantas Kaukenas is ready as he'll ever be for a titanic five-game playoff against Panathinaikos. With the first two games in Athens, Kaukenas knows that his team has a supposed disadvantage, but he also expects that focusing on the prize - the Final Four - will overcome any distractions. "We all understand there's no tomorrow," Kaukenas told Euroleague.net. "This is as good as it gets, where each player wants to be."

10.1

4.7

3.2

1.7

15.3

2.2

4.5

1.7

9.3

1.3

2.6

0.5

5.0

0.8

1.2

1.2

7.3

1.4

1.3

1.1

11.3

2.4

1.6

1.1

4.9

2.5

1.0

1.1

10.1

3.4

0.6

1.8

9.2

2.2

3.3

1.1

14.7

2.0

1.5

0.9

2.5

1.3

0.9

0.5

3.5

1.1

0.6

0.4

6.9

4.1

0.8

0.8

6.3

5.9

2.2

2.4

12.5

3.8

0.5

0.4

7.1

3.7

0.2

1.2

12.5

5.1

0.3

0.8

1.3

1.5

0.3

0.2

4.2

3.5

0.5

0.6

1.1

0.7

0.1

0.3