EuroLeague Final Four guide: The latest on the teams

SELÇUK AHMET ÇELİK 12punto.com.tr

The season in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague is nearing its end. After a long and grueling regular season and play-offs, the teams will compete to be the best in Europe in the Final Four. The Final Four will be held from May 24-26 at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin.

Our country will be represented in this event by Fenerbahçe Beko. The yellow-navy team has managed to reach the Final Four again after a 5-year hiatus. With this result, Fenerbahçe Beko has reached the Final Four for the 6th time in its history. In addition to Fenerbahçe, the defending champion Real Madrid, Panathinaikos under the management of Ergin Ataman, and Olympiacos are the other teams that will compete in Berlin.

Ahead of the Final Four taking place this week, we have compiled the latest status of the teams and how they spent their season for you...

REAL MADRID: THE NATURAL FAVORITE

Having finished last season as champions and largely maintaining their roster, Real Madrid started this season as the favorite as well. After parting ways with their point guard Nigel Williams-Goss during the transfer period, Real Madrid strengthened their squad with their former player Facundo Campazzo, who was playing for Crvena Zvezda, thereby filling the void at the number 1 position and starting the season.

Starting the season like a storm under the management of Chus Mateo, Real Madrid began the season with a 10-game winning streak. Being the team that entered the season in the best form, Real Madrid suffered its first defeat in the EuroLeague against Fenerbahçe Beko. Immediately after the Fenerbahçe defeat in the league, Real Madrid returned to winning ways by triumphing in away games against Panathinaikos and Olympiacos, continuing their rise.

Real Madrid, which continued without much difficulty for most of the season, lost a little rhythm in the final parts of the league. Although the Matadors suffered defeats against Olimpia Milano, Panathinaikos, and Fenerbahçe Beko in the final parts of the regular season, they managed to finish the regular season as leaders.

Real Madrid, which finished the league as leaders, faced Baskonia, which came from the play-in stage held for the first time this season, in the play-off round. Punishing Baskonia's soft style of play very well, Real Madrid managed to become the first team to secure a Final Four ticket by winning all 3 games in the series comfortably.

Although Real Madrid performed near-perfectly throughout the season, they experienced crises during the season. Their most valuable players in the squad, such as Yabusele, Walter Tavares, and Gabriel Deck, experienced injury problems. It was announced that Gabriel Deck would not be able to play in Berlin for the Madrid team. Thus, the Spaniards will compete in the Final Four without Deck.

Even though there were injury problems within the squad, Real Madrid took advantage of the deep roster they built. Especially the fact that Vincent Poirier, Dzanan Musa, and Mario Hezonja, who is having a career season, are coming to Berlin in great form seems to be a big advantage for the Spanish team.

Mario Hezonja, who has been competing with 13.7 points, 4.4 rebounds, 0.9 assists, and a 13.4 efficiency rating since the beginning of the season, and Dzanan Musa, who has averaged 13.2 points, 2.7 rebounds, 2.2 assists, and a 14.1 efficiency rating, have a critical role, especially in terms of offense.

In addition to these players, the trio of Real Madrid's experienced stars Sergio Llull, Sergio Rodriguez, and Rudy Fernandez will be one of the team's important assets with their experience. The star names, each having 3 EuroLeague victories with the Madrid team, will have a lot of work to do in the Final Four.

OPPONENT OLYMPIACOS

Real Madrid's opponent in the semi-finals will be Olympiacos, whom they defeated last season with a last-second basket by Sergio Llull. Real Madrid is looking to defeat their opponent once again to reach the final.

PANATHINAIKOS: RISING FROM THE ASHES

Having finished last season in 17th place under coach Radonjic and having lost significant power in recent years, Panathinaikos brought Ergin Ataman, who left Anadolu Efes, to the head of the team for the new season.

Building a brand new squad for the new season, Panathinaikos' most talked-about transfer was Kostas Sloukas, who was acquired from their arch-rival Olympiacos. The Greek team, which transferred Sloukas for 3 years and a total of 9 million dollars, showed how much they wanted to reach the top in the EuroLeague with this transfer. Apart from Sloukas, the team signed Türk Telekom's defensive guard Jerian Grant, Luca Vildoza from Crvena Zvezda, and Mathias Lessort, who spent last year at Partizan and is one of the most valuable big men in Europe. The Greek representative also announced that they had transferred Juancho Hernangomez from the NBA.

Ergin Ataman's team, which did not make the start they wanted to the season, could not get the victories they wanted in the first weeks of the season. Especially with the Sloukas-Vildoza duo remaining soft on defense in the short rotation and not getting the efficiency they wanted from Juancho Hernangomez in the long rotation, Ergin Ataman did not have a good start to his Greece career.

Panathinaikos, which returned perfectly from the small-scale crisis, started to climb to the top of the league slowly. Making important changes in the team structure, Ergin Ataman managed to increase the team's defensive performance. Incorporating Jerian Grant into the system, adopting a 3-guard system by adding Grigonis alongside the guards in the team, benefiting from Lessort's ability in switch defense under the basket, and getting remarkable contributions from Dinos Mitoglou at the number 4 position, Panathinaikos set its sights on the top four in the league.

In addition to these players, another critical point for Panathinaikos was the performance received from Greek players. Benefiting from the defensive energy of Greek names such as Kostas Antetokounmpo and especially Georgios Kalaitzakis, who was used very effectively in the Maccabi series in the play-offs, Panathinaikos thus increased the number of rotations in the team to around 7-8.

THE TURNING POINT OF THE SEASON: NUNN

One of the important turning points of the season for the Greek team was the Kendrick Nunn transfer. Transferred from the NBA in the middle of the season, Nunn managed to become one of the most valuable pieces of Panathinaikos.

Strengthened further with the addition of Nunn, Panathinaikos managed to finish the league in 2nd place, right behind Real Madrid.

STRUGGLED AGAINST MACCABI

The Greek team was matched with the Israeli representative Maccabi Tel Aviv in the EuroLeague play-off round. Despite losing the first match against Maccabi on their own court and showing a very volatile performance in the series, Panathinaikos managed to reach the Final Four after a 12-year hiatus by defeating their opponent at the end of a 5-game series. Panathinaikos, which reached the Final Four again after a 12-year hiatus, will face our representative Fenerbahçe Beko in the semi-finals.

FENERBAHÇE BEKO: CAN SARAS COMPLETE THE MISSING PIECE IN HIS CAREER?

Starting the season under the management of Dimitris Itoudis and missing the Final Four last season in a single match against Olympiacos, Fenerbahçe Beko strengthened its squad in the new period with names such as Georgios Papagiannis, Sertaç Şanlı, Raul Neto, Yam Madar, and Nate Sestina. Fenerbahçe's basic transfer policy this season was to strengthen the side pieces rather than the main pieces. Not breaking the skeleton of Calathes-Wilbekin-Pierre-Hayes-Motley, Fenerbahçe Beko added players who could be alternatives to these names to their ranks.

Fenerbahçe Beko's season did not start as desired. Although the yellow-navy team won victories in the first weeks of the league, they started to lose matches one after another in the following weeks. The name most criticized during this process was the team's Head Coach Dimitris Itoudis. Finally, after the defeat against Anadolu Efes in the league, Fenerbahçe Beko parted ways with the Greek coach and brought in Lithuanian coach Sarunas Jasikevicius to replace him.

The turning point of Fenerbahçe Beko's season was this coaching change. Fenerbahçe Beko, which defeated Monaco on their own court in the first match under Jasikevicius' management, caught an upward trend. Taking over a squad he did not build himself and ending the isolation (one-on-one offense) game, which was one of the biggest problems of the Itoudis era, Fenerbahçe Beko under Jasikevicius' management caught winning streaks in the league.

One of the changes Jasikevicius made in the team was to move Guduric to the number 3 position and field the team with three ball handlers. However, apart from all these technical areas, the biggest change Jasikevicius provided was instilling self-confidence in the team.

While a serious increase was observed in the performances of names such as the team's backbones Nick Calathes, Nigel Hayes-Davies, and Scottie Wilbekin, this performance increase was reflected in the team's general performance.

One of the most important proofs of the increase in self-confidence in the team was the team's shooting performance. Fenerbahçe Beko managed to become the team with the highest shooting percentage in the league, with a three-point percentage of approximately 40 percent in the EuroLeague.

Fenerbahçe Beko, which played 21 EuroLeague matches under the management of the Lithuanian coach, won 15 of these matches, finished the league in 6th place, and earned the right to participate directly in the play-offs.

Fenerbahçe Beko's opponent in the play-off round was the French representative Monaco. Monaco, one of the most athletic teams in the league, had finished the league in 3rd place. In addition to the season's MVP Mike James, Monaco, which had valuable guards such as Elie Okobo and Jordan Loyd in its squad, was a team that drew attention with quality forwards such as Diallo and John Brown.

Winning the first match of the series away, Fenerbahçe Beko managed to put the home-court advantage in their pocket. Monaco, which won the next match, managed to bring the situation to 1-1 in the series. Fenerbahçe Beko, which won 89-78 against their opponent in the 3rd match played in Ataşehir, brought the situation to 2-1 in the series and got one step closer to the Final Four. However, the French team won the 4th match of the series 65-62, balancing the series once again.

The last match of the series was played in Monaco. Fenerbahçe Beko, which defeated their opponent 80-79 after overtime in the match in France, managed to participate in the Final Four, which they last attended in 2019, once again.

One of the most striking details of this series was Fenerbahçe's return to a 5-guard system. With the injury experienced by Jonathan Motley, Jasikevicius, who could not get the efficiency he wanted from Georges Papagiannis and Sertaç Şanlı in the long rotation, had to use Nigel Hayes and Nate Sestina at the number 5 position for most of the series.

In the last match of the series, Nick Calathes, whose outside shooting performance is constantly debated, hitting 2 consecutive three-pointers to secure Fenerbahçe's ticket to Berlin was also one of the interesting moments of the series.

Another point about the series was that Fenerbahçe ended the streak of no away team winning in the last matches of the EuroLeague play-offs.

NOTABLE NAMES IN FENERBAHÇE

The most valuable players of the season in terms of efficiency in Fenerbahçe Beko were Nigel Hayes-Davies, Scottie Wilbekin, and Nick Calathes.

Wilbekin, who competed with 13.2 points, 2.2 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and a 12.8 efficiency rating in the season, is also the team's most shooting and highest-scoring player. The American guard attempted a total of 106 two-pointers and 293 three-pointers this season. Scottie achieved a 44.3 percent success rate in two-point shots and a 40.3 percent success rate in three-point shots.

One of the stars of the season for Fenerbahçe was Nigel Hayes-Davies. Davies finished the season with 14.1 points, 4.7 rebounds, 1.7 assists, and a 15.9 efficiency rating.

Nick Calathes, who was not even sure if he would stay in the team at the beginning of the season but was one of the most critical players of the season, competed with 7.4 points, 4.1 rebounds, 4.9 assists, and a total of 10.5 efficiency rating.

The experienced guard will have an important role in directing the game in the Final Four.

OPPONENT PANATHINAIKOS

Panathinaikos became the semi-final opponent of Fenerbahçe Beko, who won the Final Four ticket by defeating Monaco. These two teams met 2 times in the regular season. In the first match played in Istanbul, Fenerbahçe Beko defeated Panathinaikos 83-69. In the match played in Greece, Panathinaikos passed our representative Fenerbahçe Beko with a score of 74-63.

This matchup will also be a new link in the Ergin Ataman-Saras Jasikevicius rivalry. Saras, who will face Ergin Ataman, whom he has never been able to defeat at the Final Four stage before, will fight to win this time to reach the final and win the first EuroLeague trophy of his coaching career.

The Lithuanian Head Coach had experienced the joy of the EuroLeague championship with Panathinaikos and Maccabi Tel Aviv during his playing career.

OLYMPIACOS: MACHINE SYSTEM

Olympiacos, one of the most consistent teams of the EuroLeague in recent years, has written its name in the Final Four once again this season. The Greek representative, who lost to Anadolu Efes in the semi-finals in 2022 and lost to Real Madrid in the final with the last shot last season, aims to reach the championship this time.

Olympiacos, who sent their most valuable pieces Kostas Sloukas to their arch-rival Panathinaikos and Sasha Vezenkov to the NBA team Sacramento Kings at the beginning of the season, was thought by the public to have lost power compared to last season. The Greek team tried to fill the void of these two players with Nigel Williams-Goss and Luke Sikma, whom they transferred from Alba Berlin.

In addition to these two transfers, Olympiacos also went for a change in the pivot position. Parting ways with Joel Bolomboy and Tarik Black at the number 5 position, Olympiacos signed with their former player Nikola Milutinov from CSKA Moscow.

Starting the season by defeating their arch-rival Panathinaikos away, Olympiacos showed an inconsistent performance in the first parts of the season. Especially the injuries of Sikma and Milutinov, who were transferred at the beginning of the season, and the fact that the absence of Sloukas and Vezenkov could not be filled in the team caused problems. However, Olympiacos, as in Fenerbahçe Beko and Panathinaikos, increased its form with the new year.

Olympiacos, one of the teams that won the most matches in the second half of the season, finished the regular season in 5th place and was matched with the Spanish team Barcelona in the play-off round.

The Greek team, which played a 5-game series with Barcelona, became the last team to grab the ticket to Berlin by passing their strong opponent 3-2. The names that made a difference for Olympiacos in the Barcelona series were Kostas Papanikolaou and Shaquielle McKissic.

Olympiacos, which is perhaps the team with the lowest talent set among the teams in the Final Four, draws attention with the machine system it plays. The harmony of the Walkup-Canaan duo and Moustapha Fall making a big difference both in offense and defense makes Olympiacos a dangerous team.

News Source: Selçuk Çelik