Two teams aiming to end their respective Final Four droughts this season, square off in the Greek capital tonight.
Fenerbahce, Panathinaikos ready for key clash and history-making night
![Fenerbahce, Panathinaikos ready for key clash and history-making night](https://media-cdn.incrowdsports.com/b443561f-76c9-4b83-9827-78a24a122c0b.jpg?crop=2759%3A1552%3Anowe%3A0%3A118)
Over the past decade, clashes between EuroLeague giants Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens and Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul have not shied from producing historic outcomes. This week, as the teams' paths cross once again, everything is in place for this game to turn into a memorable and historic occasion, while also making a major impact on a tight playoff race.
The two teams enter Friday night's game tie for fourth place with 15-10 records. The significant playoff implications this game carries are just in addition to the storylines about both head coaches and their respective playmakers, whose careers have all been directly, or in the case of Panathinaikos head coach Ergin Ataman, indirectly, impacted by the opposing side.
Ataman might have never been on the Fenerbahce bench, but everywhere he coached over the past decade, Anadolu Efes Istanbul and Galatasaray Istanbul before that, made the clashes against Fenerbahce some of the most anticipated games of the season for his team. Now that Ataman left his native Turkey and moved to Athens, the two-time EuoLeague-winning coach again runs into the same rival in one of the key clashes of the season.
For this game, Ataman might not have the on-court services of his veteran point guard Kostas Sloukas, who spent five years wearing a Fenerbahce jersey and helped lead it to three EuroLeague championship game appearances and the 2017 EuroLeague title. Sloukas turned into a villain for Fenerbahce and its fans last May when he hit a game-winning buzzer-beating triple playing for Olympiacos Piraeus in Game 3 of the playoffs and then celebrated it by running straight into the locker room.
Even if Sloukas, who missed the last three rounds, cannot go for Panathinaikos on Friday night, he will be next to the bench trying to impact the game with his advice, especially for fellow point guards Luca Vildoza and Jerian Grant.
But his return would mean a lot for Panathinaikos, which has struggled offensively since Sloukas went down, as the team is averaging 74.0 points and has not managed to score 80 points in any of the last three games. In either case, the Greens will need sharpshooter Marius Grigonis to find his range and Kendrick Nunn to keep getting buckets while trying to cut down on his turnovers; he has averaged 4.0 over the last seven games.
Panathinaikos hopes a boost from its fans is one of the factors that can make a difference, and Fenerbahce head coach Sarunas Jasikevicius knows very well how tough the environment where he is taking his team is.
Jasikevicius returns to Athens where he played four seasons for Panathinaikos, including a three-year stint from 2007 through 2010 when he helped the Greens to the 2009 EuroLeague championship. The last season Jasikevicius spent with Panathinaikos was the 2011-12 campaign, which also marks the last time the Greens went to the Final Four.
That season, one of Saras's teammates was his current starting point guard Nick Calathes, who was once was a symbol of Panathinaikos, having played there for a total of eight seasons, first from 2009 to 2012, and again from 2015 until 2020.
Calathes set a series of assist records in the Greens' uniform, and the stars aligned for Calathes to have an opportunity to become the first man in EuroLeague history to reach 2,000 assists in the arena and against the club where he left such a big of a mark. Calathes needs only 2 assists to make this event forever inscribed in EuroLeague history.
Of course, it would not be the first time Fenerbahce made history against Panathinaikos at OAKA. In 2017, Fenerbahce became the first team to win the first two games of the playoffs on the road before going on to sweep Panathinaikos and become the only team to this day that has swept a best-of-five EuroLeague Playoff series without having the home-court advantage.
Calathes played for Panathinaikos in that series and now hopes that by reaching his individual milestone he can help Fenerbahce escape OAKA with a win and a season-sweep of Panathinaikos.
Panathinaikos, on the other hand, will see if a chance presents itself to win by more than 14 points, which is the margin of Fenerbahce's win in Round 3.
In either case, the way things have played out so far this season, this Round 26 collision is all but certain to bring another major chapter to this rivalry.