Panathinaikos will be departing shortly heading to Spain , where tomorrow at 22.30 it will be facing Real Madrid at the Palacio de los Deportes, in game 1 of the 2012-13 Euroleague season.
The greens will be traveling without Stephane Lasme, who will remain in Athens to follow a personal training program. Panathinaikos committed its last practice this morning at the OAKA arena from where it departed for the “Eleftherios Venizelos” airport.
Panathinaikos Head Coach, Argyris Pedoulakis, stresses commenting on the official Euroleague site:"It's a very difficult game for us, since we are facing a team of pure quality. It will be a very tough encounter, but I think that the cell of Panathinaikos is used to handling such situations. I believe that this game will help us in the progress of the competition. Time elapses in our favor and we want to see how the players will react at this high level. We can’t expect everything at once, but we want to proceed with steady steps. There is one more very important factor. We have to find our pace through official games. Real Madrid is one step ahead of us as far as official games played."
Mike Bramos who knows Real Madrid all too well from his ACB competing days was also hosted atwww.euroleague.net: "They are a very strong team; they have a lot of talented players. They can really score the ball and they play fast, really fast, so it is going to be a difficult game. Plus it’s the first game and it’s in their arena, so going there, we have to fight and we have to play our best. Real Madrid hasn’t changed that much since last year. They were and they are a good team; they made some good additions, but they had a lot of weapons anyway. They have a lot of great players. We cannot focus on one or two of them. Velocity is one thing in basketball, but it’s not everything. We just have to keep our mind in the game and do our best."
Kostas Tsartsaris, Vassilis Xanthopoulos, Jonas Maciulis and Charis Giannopoulos spoke of the Euroleague premiere at the “Eleftherios Venizelos” airport slightly prior to departure for Madrid .
K. Tsartsaris: “We begin as a Euroleague underdog, something quite unusual for us. We are nevertheless an experienced team and we will fight at the possibility of achieving our goals. We take things one game at a time, we do not gaze far into the future and in the end we shall see how far we get. For us the game versus Real is a very tough clash because on the one hand it is a very good team and on the other they have many official games committed; preseason NBA match-ups and they are in a better competitive state than us”.
V. Xanthopoulos: “Us having faced only Panionios in a single official game, the same time that Real has committed a Cup game, championship games and strong NBA preseason clashes is a great disadvantage for us. We have not yet bonded as a team and we have been unable to establish the aspired pace, but it is granted that we will present ourselves the best possible in order to start off the competition with a win. We hope to contain Real’s strong features, but we must not get disoriented seeing that Real is not only Rudy but the entire team since it has many very good players”.
J. Maciulis: “I don’t think Real is better prepared than us. They might have committed more games, but we are as ready as ever to fight our battle and gain the win. We are across from an extremely good team and it is a certainty that we have our work cut out for us, but in basketball any result is possible and I will restate that we are heading to Madrid for the win. All the teams head out to conquer trophies and to get victories. Our coaches have prepared us in the best way possible for this encounter”.
C. Giannopoulos: “What we hope to present in the game is all the hard work put in at practice. It is a very tough away Euroleague encounter but our goal is to win.It is a very good and experienced team, it runs a lot, it has an entirely different style than the Greek one, with many far-fetched choices in offense and we are obliged to be prepared at any given time in backcourt. Rudy is one of the greatest players, one of the top weapons in Europe and we must try to contain him as best as possible. However, he is not Real’s only good player”.
History
Real Madrid-Panathinaikos 10-10
Euroleague 1962/63 1stround Panathinaikos Real Madrid 73 - 97
Euroleague 1962/63 1stround Real Madrid Panathinaikos 90 - 60
Saporta Cup 1983/84 quarterfinals Real Madrid Panathinaikos 104 - 78
Saporta Cup 1983/84 quarterfinals Panathinaikos Real Madrid 97 - 99
Korac Cup 1990/91 2ndround Real Madrid Panathinaikos 88 - 65
Korac Cup 1990/91 2ndround Panathinaikos Real Madrid 82 - 102
Euroleague 1994/95 groups Panathinaikos Real Madrid 77 - 64
Euroleague 1994/95 groups Real Madrid Panathinaikos 66 - 68
Euroleague 1995/96 groups Panathinaikos Real Madrid 54 - 52
Euroleague 1995/96 groups Real Madrid Panathinaikos 80 - 73
Euroleague 1999/00 1stround Real Madrid Panathinaikos 63-66
Euroleague 1999/00 1stround Panathinaikos Real Madrid 96-69
Euroleague 2001/02 regular season Real Madrid Panathinaikos 70 - 78
Euroleague 2001/02 regular season Panathinaikos Real Madrid 77 - 88
Euroleague 2005/06 regular season Panathinaikos Real Madrid 87 - 71
Euroleague 2005/06 regular season Real Madrid Panathinaikos 73 - 90
Euroleague 2007/08 regular season Panathinaikos Real Μαδρίτης 92-85
Euroleague 2007/08 regular season Real Madrid Panathinaikos 95-87
Euroleague 2009/10 regular season Real Madrid Panathinaikos 80-70
Euroleague 2009/10 regular season Panathinaikos Real Madrid 67-76
Numbers – Record expectations
Dimitris Diamantidis and Kostas Tsartsaris are very close to getting into another very special“club” in their careers; two records to be defined… up in the air. The pair needs only a single rebound in order to achieve their records.
Tsartsaris needs one rebound in order to be one of the top10 Euroleague all time rebounders. He is now at 11th place having gathered 817 boards. Gregor Fucka and Jorge Garbajosa are one position higher having 818. Diamantidis needs one rebound also in order to enter the top 20 Euroleague all time rebounders, quite a unique achievement seeing that he plays at guard position. At the moment he is in 21st place with 686 rebounds. Spot 20 is covered by Matjaz Smodis and his 687 boards. Also, Diamantidis has made at least one triple in each of his last 16 Euroleague encounters, whilst he has finished his seven last games behind double digits score accumulation.
* Roko Leni Ukic has drained at least one three-pointer in the last ten Euroleague games he has competed in, while he has tallied double digits points in his last seven clashes.
*Sofoklis Schortsanitis needs only 10 points in order to hit the 1,000 point marker in his Euroleague career.
*Jonas Maciulis needs only 5 good triples in order to make his Euroleague threes 100.
*Stephane Lasme might not have followed the delegation but this does not change the fact that his blocked-shots Euroleague record is against Real Madrid. Wearing the Partisan jersey his showed the… stop sign to his opponents five times.
