The final battle to reach the EuroLeague Final Four
Tomorrow we will find out the names of the teams that will join the already qualified Olympiacos and Fenerbahce in the EuroLeague Final Four that will be held in Abu Dhabi.
The first of the two Game 5 matchups will be played in Monte Carlo in the Salle Gaston Médecin, where Monaco will host Barcelona. The first two games in this gym ended with convincing victories by the home team. In Game 1, the ‘’Roca Team’’ won with a score of 97-80 after an impressive 3rd quarter, which they won 32-17. In Game 2, besides the first few minutes, Monaco led the whole game and won without any issues, 92-79. The series then moved to Palau Blaugrana for games 3 and 4, and Barcelona managed to save its season with two convincing wins, 100-89 in Game 3 and 79-72 in Game 4.
It’s hard to predict the outcome of Game 5 in Monaco. The hosts don’t have a huge fan support as they play in a smaller gym, but when we look at their results, they usually perform very well when playing at home.
The day’s second game will be in Athens in OAKA, where Panathinaikos will host Anadolu Efes. Before the series started, the defending EuroLeague champions were considered huge favourites and most people expected this series to be over in 3 or 4 games. However, right from Game 1, we could see that this would be an extremely balanced matchup: the Turkish team had a 12-point lead close to the end of the 3rd quarter. PAO made an incredible comeback in the last quarter and managed to win in the end, 87-83. In Game 2, the Greens started much better and still had an 8-point lead in the fourth quarter, but this time Efes was the team that finished strong and won 79-76. In Istanbul Games 3 and 4 were as exciting as the first games. Panathinaikos won Game 3 81-77 while Efes managed to stay alive by winning Game 4 85-82.
We can expect the trend to continue and to have an exciting and dramatic Game 5 that will be decided by just a couple of points. Still, Panathinaikos is the favourite to advance with a full OAKA backing them so the home court advantage could be the decisive factor in this series.
Imre Halasz
Photo: EuroLeague
