Game of the Week: A rematch full of storylines

If a screenwriter were to cook up the most exciting plots for a Turkish Airlines EuroLeague clash, he would find plenty of great storylines in Friday’s Game of the Week between reigning champion Anadolu Efes Istanbul and the team it defeated in last season’s championship game, FC Barcelona.

This game is more than just a rematch from the title-decider last May in Cologne, Germany. It has star power, all-time legends, injured stars, talents on the rise, a player who switched sides and much more.

Naturally, the starting point is that Barcelona is tied for the top spot in the league with a 10-2 record, while Efes is 6-6, lost its first four games of the season and needs a win to give itself a winning record for the first time all season. However, both teams are in excellent form now with four straight wins each.

Efes has many ties to the Barcelona camp. Three of its players have suited up for the Blaugrana in the past: Tibor Pleiss in 2014-15, Adrien Moerman in 2017-18 and Chris Singleton in 2018-19.

And then there is All-EuroLeague guard Shane Larkin. His career scoring average of 15.1 points is 20th in EuroLeague history, seventh among players with at least 100 appearances and fourth among active players. And Larkin has burned Barca for a great many of his 2,110 career points.

During the 2018-19 campaign, Larkin became the first player in competition history to score 30 points against the same team twice in one season when he netted 37 in a regular-season victory and 30 in Game 3 of the playoffs. In fact, nearly one-eighth of all the points Larkin has scored in his career have come in his 13 games against Barcelona.

Larkin has totaled 263 points for a per-game average of 20.2 in leading his teams to a 10-3 record against Barcelona. The first two of those games – both wins – came with Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz. He averaged 16.0 points in those 2017-18 games. The remaining 11 games have been with Efes, during which his scoring average has been 21.0 per game.

Is Larkin due for another big game versus Barca? He has seen his scoring rise in each game during Efes’s current winning streak and poured in a season-high 25 in a come-from-behind road win at crosstown rival Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul last week.

What’s more, Barcelona comes into the game with a thinner backcourt due to injuries to starters Nick Calathes and Cory Higgins. Remember the rising stars we mentioned earlier? Rokas Jokubaitis, who celebrated his 21st birthday earlier this month, has taken advantage of the available minutes to average 10.5 points on 18-for-27 shooting (66.7%) and 4.8 assists over his last four games and will provide a physical boost to the Barcelona backcourt alongside presumed started Nicolas Laprovittola.

Will this game be another opportunity for Larkin to pad his numbers against Barcelona? Or perhaps a turning-point for Jokubaitis as he asserts himself as a force to be reckoned with on both ends of the floor?

Another interesting wrinkle comes from the presence of Sertac Sanli, who averaged 15.5 points and 5 rebounds at last season’s Final Four for Efes and is now a part-time starter for Barcelona. Will years of practices give Sanli an advantage in the paint against Bryant Dunston and Tibor Pleiss? Will it be the other way around? Who will be more motivated against his former teammate?

Perhaps the true measure of how great the matchup between Efes and Barcelona is should come from the fact that this deep into the analysis, we have yet to mention the name of the reigning EuroLeague MVP, Vasilije Micic, nor the league-leader in performance index rating, Nikola Mirotic.

Micic went off for a game-high 25 points in the championship game last season, while Efes held Mirotic to 11 points and 9 rebounds. Can Efes limit Mirotic again? Will Micic, who is 3 for 21 from downtown (14.3%) over his last three games, rise up alongside Larkin to break down the Barcelona defense?

While Efes’s Coach Ergin Ataman and his Barcelona counterpart Sarunas Jasikevicius have their work cut out for them ahead of this duel, the rest of basketball fans can prepare to enjoy this clash of titans.