Ettore Messina focused on Panathinaikos

The words of Ettore Messina

Both Olimpia and Panathinaikos come to this challenge with high spirits. Olimpia convincingly beat Asvel Villeurbanne after beating Barcelona; Panathinaikos crowned a battle by overcoming Monaco on the road with a basket at the end of the period by Marius Grigonis. Both have won the last two games moving up in the standings with Panathinaikos putting its head inside the playoff/play-in zone for the first time and Olimpia è tagging along and will try to take advantage of the sequence of home games (three in a row but overall six of seven including one already played).

One’other analogy: the standings do not do justice to the two teams. Panathinaikos è 0-3 in games ended in overtime; Olimpia has lost two out of two. In fact, Panathinaikos has the fifth-best basket difference in the competition (+40), one point less than Virtus Bologna, which è second in the standings. Olimpia’s +41 – the same as Bologna, third absolute value – in fact è surreal compared to the standings. So’è è why the contest with Panathinaikos is worth so much. The Greek team compared to the’beginning of the season has included the’former NBA scorer, Kendrick Nunn and recovered after an injury stop the’wing Juancho Hernangomez.

Olimpia obviously è still without Nikola Mirotic, Maodo Lo and Pippo Ricci. It has recovered forò Billy Baron who although obviously lagging behind especially in feeling for the game played profitably against the’Asvel and gradually will doà better and better.

Coach Ettore Messina presented the challenge this way: "We face a team of the highest level, which besides everything is going through a period of excellent condition. We are aware, in the ’emergency, of the difficultiesà of this match, but we will have to continue to give each our best every time we go the court. If we do that, as è it has been in the last games, I have no doubt that team and audience against Panathinaikos will support each other for the whole 40 minutes”.