Will Efes have an easy final against Pinar Karsiyaka?
Anadolu Efes and Pınar Karsıyaka will meet in the final of the 2022–23 Basketball Super League in a best-of-five format, the first match will take place on June 13 at the Sinan Erdem Dome.
Like the Phoenix bird, that’s how Efes was at the end of the season, missing the Euroleague playoffs, defeated by Fenerbahce in the first match of the semifinal with 108-66 and with a coach, Ataman who already signed with Panathinaikos, it seemed that everyone was thinking somewhere else, but just like the legendary bird, they were reborn in the semifinal with Fenerbahce, winning three consecutive matches and reaching the final again, a usual performance for them in recent seasons. All the moves thought by Ataman worked, the use of Pleiss after Zizic’s injury was a positive boost, as was the tactical change with left out Beaubois and the more use of Bryant and M’baye. In the last match, Larkin was used injured and it is not known if he will be able to recover, so there are chances that we will see the 2020/2021 Final MVP, Rodrigue Beaubois in the starting line-up. It should be noted how well they are doing in a rotation of 6 players: Micic, Bryant, Clyburn, Larkin, M’baye and Pleiss, with the contribution of the Turkish players being close to 0.
Pinar managed a small miracle and eliminated the revelation of this season, Turk Telekom, after failing to win against them in the regular season. After losing the first game of the semifinal with 98-94, three huge victories followed and the one who shone was not McCollum (18.3 points, 4.7 assists), was Delgado, who managed to score 25, 19 and 21 points in the three games won, helped by McCollum (12, 12, 21 points) and Angola (18, 12, 12 points). Unlike Efes, Pinar has at its disposal a very valuable Turk player, Sipahi, who was in double digits in 3 of the 4 semifinal matches (12, 2, 13, and 15 points).
For Efes, the only performance would be winning the trophy and Ataman wants to leave winning one last trophy. Pinar has already exceeded his condition, the fourth place has already managed to eliminate a team that had never lost a home this season in the Super League, so they can hope for a new title after the ones in 1987 and 2015, especially since they have already won two times against Efes this season.
Valentin Petruta
Photo: Fanatik
