'Now it's time for us to win': Final Four preview, Olympiacos

Last year's oh-so-close runners-up are aiming to take their destiny one shot further to a title at the Final Four in Berlin.

Very few teams have ever come so close to the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague title without being able to lift the trophy than Olympiacos Piraeus a year ago. Back for a club-record third consecutive Final Four in Berlin this weekend, the Reds are ready to learn from that experience, starting with a 2023 championship game rematch in the semifinals against Real Madrid on Friday at Uber Arena.

"We should have won that game," point guard Thomas Walkup remembered. "We didn't, and that's on us, but we're going back with that same mindset, that we're here to win this thing."

Nobody knows better than Olympiacos forward Kostas Papanikolaou what such success takes. He was a young buck when the Reds took back-to-back titles in 2012 and 2013, and now he's a veteran cherishing every opportunity that comes his team's way.

"It's the same feeling, the same excitement like the first time. You cannot get enough of it," Papanikolaou says. "All this is what sports is about. This is what you love about playing basketball, or sports in general; to be on the center stage and competing for big titles."

Guiding Papanikolaou and his teammates back in 2013 was head coach Georgios Bartzokas, who masterminded a 17-point comeback in that year's title game to beat none other than Real Madrid. Despite last season's last-gasp loss and Real's dominance all of this season, Bartzokas says his team is ready.

"We believe in ourselves," the Reds' boss says. "We are sure that we're going to be really competitive."