Angels Week | Blog – Nikos Papadogiannis

Nikos Papadogiannis believes that Panathinaikos is building its character and changing its course, while Olympiacos remains in the rebuilding phase.

The final night of this year’s double screen ended with a double show and a glorious rematch: Panathinaikos win away, Olympiacos win away, let’s remember the old and look forward to the new. The last week of the Devils this year would have ended in dust for the Angels, had it not been for the suicide of the ‘Reds’ on Tuesday night in Bologna.

From then on, the Côte d’Azur and the foothills of the Alps became a playground for Greek “eternals”: Come to Monte Carlo, come to Lyon, come to Milan too, let the next person pass, as long as he doesn’t speak Spanish, because we are struggling there.. We’ve had a sweeter turkey, like Greek basketball, but the four days before Rastoni’s Christmas leave room for optimism and make the skies over Berlin seem less cloudy than they actually are.

Panathinaikos (9-7 despite a dramatic three-time loss), who really expected this, sees only three back lines on its horizon: Barcelona (11-5), Virtus (11-5), and somewhere in the back of the old friend Hezonias (15-1). Olympiacos may be in 11th place at 8-8, but they are just one point behind their eternal enemy.He would have been in the same step if he hadn’t let Tuesday’s pink sheet slip through his fingers.

The latter can also be read backwards, of course. It may be a step behind the fourth-placed teams, but it’s still 11th. Precisely because seven months ago Olympiacos touched the champagne of the European title with its lips, it is unfair – for Panathinaikos – Let us remember him today at the same time that the team began a counterattack from 17th place last May.

Christos Cirellis said Panathinaikos’ victory over Armani was more important than Wednesday’s miracle in Monte Carlo. And he’s right.

* Firstly, because the glow of the miracle fades quickly if it is not confirmed in the next few matches.

* Secondly, because this time the “Greens” were in control of the game from beginning to end and there was no need to pray to the roulette gods for the ball to land on the correct number..

*Thirdly, because the team’s morale was affected by the missed opportunities from Belgrade and Istanbul, with the exception of 45 painful minutes against Maccabi or Olympiacos.

Panathinaikos slowly builds his character and learns not to be afraid of anyone, anytime, anywhere. With a win over Red Star next Thursday in Owaka, a possible and certainly acceptable scenario, the dawn of 2024 will find him in fourth place with sympathy.

A cynic will claim that Armani on December 22 is not much better than Villerbane or Alba, but in a competition with such fragile balances the competitor becomes bigger the longer you let them.. It hasn’t been a good week since Ettore Messina’s side lifted the trophy in Barcelona.

What was played in Milan wasn’t exactly basketball, and that’s more Armani’s fault than Panathinaikos’, but the streetball played by the Italians and Greeks was icing on the cake for Kendrick Nunn, who came off the bench at the time of LeSueur’s injury. (65-67) and finished the match with 7 unbeaten points in the final half.

The Greens conceded a series of easy baskets in the open air while the game was open, and had problems with Voigtmann against Mitoglou (before Juancho plugged holes with his size), but they only conceded one basket in the final period of the game (and that one was pulled by the hair , a three-pointer by Shields on defense). They put the ball in the right hand at the right time.

Nunn put his signature on the game, but only Kostas Sloukas had the patience to play normal basketball in Anamboula’s moments: 6 assists, only 1 foul, 5 rebounds, 9 points in an economical package.

None of Friday’s stats compare to Mustapha Fall’s little masterpiece: 7 assists, 7 rebounds, 8 blocks, only 2 points but no one cares. On French soil, the Frenchman felt at home and laid a comfortable carpet for Olympiacos to return to the right path. When have we seen such performance from a European centre?

Nicholas Milutinov’s 1:02 was the best mantato for the ‘Red and White’ combined with the equally exhausting 14:08 of Tomas Walkap, while Giorgos Bartzokas debuted the format that intrigued many and rested even more, with Petrosev and Sikmas sharing the racket functions if only for five minutes. Just.

Beyond Experimentation, The Return of McKissic, Goss Williams, Olympiacos won in Lyon because it was almost impossible to lose to Villeurbanne. However, the white color of the stats has a gray line around it. The ever-reliable Isaiah Canaan spent months on the sidelines, while the irreplaceable Alec Pieters was not used for a single second in the Kaunas final. What exactly do Olympiacos coaches expect and from whom when they persistently ask for time?