Olympiacos 2024 was built for series like this with Barcelona

At the end of last season, if you caught the players, the coaches, the people of Olympiakos by the nose, they would explode. The way the EuroLeague was lost wasn’t just painful, it was unbearable.

Mission to Barcelona: Haris Stavrou

This was followed by the departure of the MVP of the event and a building different from the previous ones. With accents, but for a slightly different style of basketball. With fewer possessions, with even more ball circulation, without a point of emphasis in attack. Without a player like Sasha Vezhenkov who started with 20 from the locker room, but with a lot of guys both on the perimeter and on the racket, who have the ability to decide matches.

Walkup and Fal. Williams-Goss and Peters. Lorentzakis and McKissick. Kanan and Petrusev. Milutinov and Wright. All starred in victories, all have the talent and skills to carry Olympiacos. This time, though, at least in the first game of the series against Barcelona for the EuroLeague playoffs, there will be a big loss.

In Olympiakos they are ready for battle

Kostas Papanikolaou did not follow the mission that arrived on Tuesday night (23/4) at El Prat airport and as Giorgos Bartzokas explained, he will not be available at least for the first match, probably for neither of the two this week.

The flu/virus that afflicts the captain of the red and whites will keep him out of action, not because he does not have the strength to travel alone on the day and help, even in a limited time of participation, but because there is no reason to risk the spread of the virus.

In Olympiakos they are ready for battle without the pivotal small forward of the starting five, with Barzokas having built the roster in such a way that he can cover any absence. Literally any.

The players of the second unit (Williams-Goss, McKissick, Larentzakis, Petrusev, Milutinov) are all capable of standing in the starting five, although it matters little in modern basketball who starts a game. It matters who finishes him and in Olympiakos they have the units to cope with such a dynamic venue, against such an exuberant opponent.

The answer will be given on the floor

Will Barzokas go in a formation with Walkup, Kanan, McKissick? Will he go five with Walkup, Kanan, Peters, Petrusev, Fal? Will the match close with three short, with two short and three high? The answer will be given on the floor of the Palau Blaugrana, but what is certain is that the coach of Olympiakos has the players to fill the void of even Papanikolaou, a super pivotal athlete in matches of this importance, with this stake.

The Piraeus players traveled to Spain on a charter flight and some players have their partners with them. In Eleftherios Venizelos, during the journey, in the first moments in Barcelona, ​​there was no excitement, there was no fear, there was nothing to indicate that the team is going into a situation that it cannot face. In Olympiakos, they are fired up from series like this, they face it with composure and have respect for the opponent. They know that Barcelona have two equal fives, but that’s how Olympiacos works this year too.

What is the difference compared to the previous two years? That the Piraeus went to Monte Carlo and Istanbul with the “must” of at least one victory to stay alive, while this year even if they lose on Wednesday and Friday, they will have the opportunity to turn the series around here, in Barcelona, ​​for a historic fifth match.

Perhaps this factor, the fact that nothing will be decided in this three-day period, will help Olympiakos play with even less stress and make the break as they did last year and the year before, Monegasque and Turks.

The home advantage has given 18/18 qualifications to the teams that had a fifth match at home. But now, with the EuroLeague format, there is also an immunity to “hot seats“, at “infernal atmospheres“.

Palau Blaugrana is not what you call “hell”, but it is a ground where Barcelona play well, get results and simply put, they have the means to exploit it.

Olympiacos has prepared well

Full or not, with Papanikolaou or without Papanikolaou, Olympiacos has prepared well in the regular season and enters the playoffs like a well-read student who sets the bar high. He won at Partizan, took a streak of away matches with Valencia, with Zalgiris, with Bayern, he also won at Red Star. If these results gave him a good momentum, it will show tonight and on Friday.

Brake can do it. But to leave Barcelona with home advantage, he will need to have good partnerships, efficiency in defensive rebounding to not give many second chances to the home side, he will have to limit mistakes and even if he wastes possessions, he will have to has good transition defense.

Most of all, though, he’ll have to avoid a dead period, a bad quarter like the third quarter he had in the regular season, when he conceded 31 points and had to look for a minor miracle to turn the game around.

The playoffs are another story and it matters little if you win by one or 30 points, if you lose by one or 30 points. In the playoffs, cynicism, composure, adjustments are needed. They called them best-of-five series for a reason. And Olympiacos is too experienced not to have these elements that will help it claim qualification to another Final Four.