Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 3:12 pm  |  7 responses

Euroleague Weekly Review

Shorthanded Partizan teaches Panathinaikos a lesson.

by Erildas Budraitis

In this 11th edition of Euroleague Weekly Review, we will overlook the first Euroleague’s Top-16 tour, where there was a lot of drama and surprises.

Spain’s powerhouse, Regal Barcelona, despite a terrible performance from Ricky Rubio, grabbed the win over Maroussi Athens and won its 11th eleventh game in a row. After an amazing showing in the tour’s final game, Rubio scored just 3 points and made 3 turnovers in 20 minutes.

Other Euroleague favorites — CSKA Moscow, Real Madrid, Montepaschi Siena — won big games at home. Olympiakos Piraeus survived in an away match against Caja Laboral Vitoria. Of course, this is just a start of the Top 16, and it’s too early to make any conclusions.

But Partizan Belgrade, which had to play without their superstar Aleks Maric, made a statement, and managed to win against last year’s Euroleague champions, Panathinaikos Athens. Euroleague – where crazy things happen.

GAME OF THE WEEK

Partizan came from 9 points behind in the third quarter to win, 64-59, against the five-time Euroleague champion, Panathinaikos. Partizan started the Top 16 stage with an impressive win.

The Greens had Jan Vesleythe lead in the first three quarters, but in the fourth, Partizan showed excellent defense and held the opponents to only 7 points. Meanwhile, the Serbians started to play more aggressively, which allowed Partizan to grab a surprising victory.

“We had control of the game for 35 minutes and led by 9 points, but failed to increase our margin. Partizan did not give up, he grabbed critical offensive rebounds, and ended up winning,” Panathinaikos’ center Nikola Pekovic said, who finished the game with 7 points and 6 boards. Pekovic’s comment exactly illustrates how selfless Partizan played.

NBA prospect Jan Vesely led Partizan with 13 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists. Petar Bozic and former Memphis Grizzlie, Lawrence Roberts, both added 12 points.

For Panathinaikos ex-Rocket, Vassilis Spanoulis scored 14 points and dished out 5 assists. Dimitris Diamantidis added 11 points and 3 steals. Marcus Haislip, who played for the San Antonio Spurs during first part of the ’09-10 season, ended the game with 7 points in 14 minutes.

PLAYER OF THE WEEFernando San EmeterioK

During this Euroleague tour, we have this week’s MVP trio – Fernando San Emeterio, Robertas Javtokas and Ramunas Siskauskas. They all have 29 index ranking points.

San Emeterio, the Caja Laboral Vitoria guard, scored 20 points and dished out 7 assists in the game against CSKA Moscow. Robertas Javtokas, who plays for Chimki Moscow Region, finished the game with 17 points and 9 boards. Lithuanian Ramunas Siskauskas, the CSKA Moscow leader, scored 23 points and grabbed 4 boards.

Next week we will see which team, Olympiakos or Chimki, is better and how far Partizan “legend killers” Belgrade can go – can they beat league leader Regal Barcelona?

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  • http://slamonline.com/ Ryne Nelson

    Watch out for Bo McCalebb as well. He didn’t have a great game, but I bet the Greeks aren’t going to have an answer for him.

  • http://www.euroleague.net/competition/all-decade/main-page/i/65216/4259/euroleague-all-decade-candidate-dimitris-diamantidis?lang=en&itemid=65216&mid=4259&tabid=1143&itemname=EUROLEAGU DIMITRIS DIAMANTIDIS(click on my name)

    @Ryne….:i know you are joking. Panathinaikos has Diamantidis as a point guard, we are talikng about the best defender in Europe for the last 6 straight years(voted by Euroleague coaches etc),something like the Bill Russell of guards (basically one of the best guards in the world for the past decade, NBA included).McCalebb doesn’t exist compared to him. I will not even mention last years Euroleague MVP Spanoulis or Yasikevicious. Puting a nobody near those legends is like saying that TEAM USA with Jordan,Stocton and Magic will not have an answer for the up and coming Ricky Rubio. This is EXACTLY what you said but it is excusable since you are propably knew to the European game.
    2)@Erildas….:”Next week we will see which team, Olympiakos or Chimki, is better… ” you are also joking(i start to like this joking atmosphere,it makes me want to write!!!). Chimki is nowhere near Olympiakos talent wise, they just have a better coach and a disciplined team.Only thing that can happen is for us to underestimate them (which is quite possible with our teams mentality).
    3)Panathinaikos is in big trouble since their team seems to be really tired. Their main problem is that their best players are exhausted(Fotsis&Spanoulis exhasted from European championship) or injured(Tsartsaris,Batist&Diamantidis) while the team appears to be saturated emotionally (4 titles in the past decade, arguably best team of the past 25 years in Europe). Things are so bad tha Obradovic just today cut the legendary Yasikevicious from the teams rotation (imagine that….).
    4)I saw the Olympiakos game, for a big part of the game we played some of the best bball you’ve seen , Josh and Kleiza had at least 4 NBA quality highlights. It will take a miracle to lose the first place in the group. I already plan my trip to Paris (i hope..). Kleiza,when on, is simply unstopable in Europe. Caja managed to remain in the game scoring crazy three pointers which made it clear to those who know that the end was coming (you can not shoot like Reggie in New York for 40 minutes…)
    4)@Nick Gibson….:you came close to the Real game and you had more faith in Olympiakos talent than me. Good job.

  • http://www.euroleague.net/competition/all-decade/main-page/i/65216/4259/euroleague-all-decade-candidate-dimitris-diamantidis?lang=en&itemid=65216&mid=4259&tabid=1143&itemname=EUROLEAGU DIMITRIS DIAMANTIDIS(click on my name)

    check here Josh and Kleiza heroics…
    http://euroleague.infrontams.tv/index.php

  • http://slamonline.com Erildas Budraitis

    Dimitris Diamantidis – I know your opinion is objective and you are not a Panathinaikos fan, yea? If for real, you are talking about rosters, names but the main thing is what you can do on the court. Okey, if Olympiakos is way better then Chimki, they will kick the Russians asses and that’s it. I’m glad that you feel joking atmosphere but there aren’t any jokes. Just basketball.

  • http://www.euroleague.net/competition/all-decade/main-page/i/65216/4259/euroleague-all-decade-candidate-dimitris-diamantidis?lang=en&itemid=65216&mid=4259&tabid=1143&itemname=EUROLEAGU DIMITRIS DIAMANTIDIS(click on my name)

    @Erildas……:Scariolo said that Olympiakos,Panathinaikos&Barca are one level above everybody else talent wise (i said the same 3 months before him). Of course this doesn’t mean that they will definitely play better as you correctly said. At the same time saying that “Okey, if Olympiakos is way better then Chimki, they will kick the Russians asses and that’s it ” is the same as saying that the Raptors proved that they’re better than the Lakers cause they won a regular season game in Toronto last week. Well THAT is definitelly a “joking” way of thinking. I’ll help you state it better: the Russians are better than Olympiakos if they make it further in this year Euroleague. THAT is a serious basketball statement.No jokes. Just basketball.

  • http://slamonline.com d.j.

    wow this dimitris dude is fuc!n clueless gettin on my nerves … ur putting down mccaleb common mane thats a good player right there just as good as the fat ass u claim to be the best defender for the past 6 years haha thats a joke right ? and if ur boy diamondtits or whatever his name is, is the best player in europe how come he hasn’t made it to the L yet ? i dont got no time to b arguing with ur bias ass and dusko vujosevic is the best coach in europe, the man can teach Christina Aguilera to play zone defence imagine what he he is gona do to mccalebs game than… every1 he coached came out of belgrade a better player

  • http://slamonline.com d.j.

    o and ill put my house down that partizan will whoop Panathinaikos when yall come to visit in belgrade its a fuc!n mismatch i swear

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