It's time for the European Premiere for Panathinaikos. Tomorrow (17/10) at 21.45 the Greens will face Lietuvos Rytas for the first day in Euroleague. And they will do it without Mike Bramos, since he remained in Athens due to illness.
Argyris Pedoulakis and James Gist talked to Euroleague for this first game in the competition.
Argyris Pedoulakis: "Euroleague begins and what we need is these upcoming strong games, in order to find our rhythm. We have to become a team and to get over all these problems we had and have with some injuries and misfortunes, like the last one with Mike Bramos. Practicing every day, playing each game, will help us to get exactly where we want to be. We are still at the beginning and we still have a lot of work to do".
James Gist: "It's very exciting that a new Euroleague season starts Thursday for us! All the teams have great quality players this season and high aspirations. Thursday's game will be very difficult. Lietuvos Rytas is a tough team and they have great fans, they also won the Qualifying Round Tournament by beating some very good teams. This game will be a test for us to see if we can focus for 40 minutes and fight for every possession, and I believe we are capable of this".
History
Panathinaikos and Lietuvos Rytas have met four times in the past and they share wins and defeats.
2000-01 First Stage Panathinaikos-Lietuvos Rytas 104-83
2000-01 First Stage Lietuvos Rytas-Panathinaikos 87-78
2010-11 Top16 Lietuvos Rytas-Panathinaikos 59-80
2010-11 Top16 Panathinaikos-Lietuvos Rytas 67-68
Numbers
Ramel Curry, Nikos Pappas, Vladimir Jankovic are all set to make their Turkish Airlines Euroleague debuts.
Dimitris Diamantidis is just 4 games away from hitting the 200 games played mark. He would be the 13th
player to accomplish that feat.
Stephane Lasme is 3 blocked shots behind D’Or Fischer for 10th place on the competition’s list of blocks leaders. Lasme enters the season tied for 11th place with Budivelnik big man Darjus Lavrinovic at 109 career rejections.
Antonis Fotsis has made at least 1 three-pointer in five straight and nine of his last 10 Turkish Airlines Euroleague games.
"Relations"
Panathinaikos will find a familiar face in Lietuvos Rytas tomorrow, Milenko Tepic. Tepic played for Panathinaikos from to 2009 to 2011. He was teammate there of current Greens Dimitris Diamantidis, Mike Batiste and Antonis Fotsis.
