EL Playoff 2013 - Quarter Finals 3: Barcelona Regal - Panathinaikos

[janos2]

Best team went through.No doubt about that.
However, they have to pick up their game if they want to have a serious shot at the title.My guess is they won't.
Congrats to PAO for a good season.

---

 

[black eagle2]

Congrats Barca.

 

[GL32]

Congrats to Barcelona. The much better team in terms of pure talent and experience won. PAO's jersey weighs the world and Diamantidis won two games on his basketball genius alone, being the real difference maker in crunch time. He obviously could not last the whole series, not at age 33 and with Barcelona's whole game plan involving how to slow him down. Special mention of course to JC Navarro, whose ability to destabilize a FIBA defense is truly uncanny. Classic battle between two greats.

Beautiful series overall in terms of excitement, passion and willingness to win.

ps. 3 trivial (as opposed to flagrant and indisputed ones) fouls in the first 4 minutes on the competition icon, in a classic game? Some progress has to be made here if you ask me.

 

[Ariel Aduriz2]

Barcelona-Real will be an interesting semi-final to watch.
Cska has already lifted the trophy in my opinion.
I have said many times that Panathinaikos offense is the worse and most boring in Europe over the past 20 years BUT their defense is even better than Limoges and is simply smothering the opponents.
Barcelona needs some facelift for next season because Mickael/Lorbek/Navarro etc don't get any younger.
I guess that Panathinaikos fans on other hand should be more than happy with their teams effort because despite their bad basketball they won the Greek cup and they will also 90% beat Olympiakos in the Greek championship finals.I predict Greek finals games ending like 65-55 score in favor of Panathinaikos and total score 3-1 or even 3-0

 

[pohani komarac2]

Matchups this sesan with Barca and Real were epic. So amazing to watch. Hope for another great El Clasico

 

[naumoski2]

Why madridistas never learn???They said that their team would destroy us in the final of last year, they said that they would destroy us in the Copa del rey, they even said they would win La Decima. Is unnatural for you to say "bravuconadas" one after the other?

No Mickeal, no party.

 

[Kwijibo2]

Matchups this sesan with Barca and Real were epic. So amazing to watch. Hope for another great El Clasico

The problem is that we missed pete who has been the ebst player vs madrid since he is in the team. The semifinal is in favor of madrid 70-30. They have better roster by far and no injuried players. On the other hands barça has pete out, lorbek in a shameless status, Cj is injured and maybe miss the f4, but we have more experience than them.


BTW madrid is the fuckign luckiest team in europe???? Always when they face a Top team in europe the other team always have they key players injuried. Its incredibly their luck in football and basket...

 

[Kwijibo2]

No Mickeal, no party.

At least w8 to the game

 

[Jazz2]

Its incredibly their luck in football and basket...

Going by Wednesday night that luck may have run out...

 

[trompas2]

pao was very bad tonight behind the 6.75m
barca was bad too, but took advantage in the 1st quarter and the first minutes of the 2nd qt. when diamantidis was out of the game.
Panathinaikos imo deserved the qualification because he played better n the first three games.
Especially in the first game barca had a big handicap from the refs. Referees are bad in general, not only tonight but from the beginning of the competition.
Some teams have a lot of help from the refs. (e.g. cska), some others less (e.g. olympiakos, real) and the rest are fighting against 8 players (baskonia, pao etc.)

We didn't see the first foul of diamantidis (there was no replay; this is another story for discussion about the media game coverage).
His second foul was very strict and on the third one everybody laughed out loud.
(Although panathinaikos had referees against him, i didn't like the fact that he was complaining all the time to the refs.
Because its a big team, pao should have been prepared for such situations).

His defense was very good but he was unlucky with the 3pt shooting (missed many free shots). Panathinaikos played very well at the first three games,
it's a new team, no one was counting on greens when the season started, managed to limit barca below 70pts in all games, but the limited roster was a big hurdle for them.

I don't know what will happen in the greek competition, but there is a base to build the team for the next season (lasme [imho the best player all the season not only for pao but for the whole euroleague], bramos, maciulis, ukic and gist should remain in the team - pao needs a good player (pg) as a reserve of diamantidis and another good player to change the old and experienced tsartsaris at the PF position who could score both inside and outside of the box).

Unfortunately, in Greece the national championship would be critical for the decisions that will be made in the summer. A possible loss of the trophy could destroy everything that was built this season.
The team has a good roster of 8 players and next year must find 4 more to complete the roster/bench and be competitive again.

Nice journey so far the greens this year (counting that ten out of twelve players (coaching staff included) leaved the team last summer), congrats to PAO and the fans (arena sold outs in many games) and I hope that euroleague would be a better competition next year (both refs. and organization)

Respect is what every team deserves. Congrats to barca despite the help that had from the referees; the value of the loser gives glory to the winner.


p.s. after the 4-0 from bayern another disqualification would be a big disappointment for them
c$ka dollar$ are the favourite for the title.

 

[trompas2]

...
I have said many times that Panathinaikos offense is the worse and most boring in Europe over the past 20 years
...

I disagree. Panathinaikos played well this year in offence. There were a lot of highlights. especially diamantidis-lasme alley oops were something impressive. It was like watching payton-kemp, kidd-carter or something similar of nba in european arenas.

This team was the first team that played pick'n'roll, hard defense with full court press and generally i think that changed the european basketball the way it is played in both offense and defense.
and you cannot say that for a team that is the most successful one with 6 rings and at least 10 final four appearances the last 20 years. And i can remember many good games (especially the 2007 final pao won against CSKA Moscow with 93–91 was like an advertisement of how offense should be played in modern basketball).

And there were rosters that they played better offense than defense (e.g. 2001 rebraca, bodiroga, alvertis, gentile, kattash - 2009 siskauskas, diamantidis, spanoulis, jasiskevicius, batiste, pekovic, nikolas)

I don't think you are right

 

[Jon_Koncak2]

Barcelona needs some facelift for next season because Mickael/Lorbek/Navarro etc don't get any younger.

Lorbek is just 29.Not a bad age certainly,but him playing like a washed up veteran fooled you i guess.

 

[goga782]

Ukic - what a horrible player. Every decision on the court he makes seems to be the wrong one. Not hard enough to finish plays under the basket, no post up skills, no stable shot. Never passes the ball when he needs to pass it. With him, ball circulation for PAO is bad. Actually, with Diamantidis it wasn't good either. He was defended well regardless of the name of the defender. Barca let him play like a one-dimansional player. Slow, no jump shots, no successful drives. Yes, he was a very important factor in the first two games and won the second game with his three at the end but he didn't play that great a series. Actually, probably good but not more. Never got why Pedoulakis didn#t play Banks more. I hated him on defense today but it isn't like Ukic was doing a heck of a job either. The whole series, PAO had to bear a really bad Ukic instead of trying the American guard. If you have him, why not playing him?

Lorbek is simply horrible for a player of his status and his salary.

Overall, Barca is the fair winner of this series. Three equal games and in two other Barca has been the better team not giving PAO many chances.

I will root for Efes tomorrow. One lucky title by Olympiacos is enough. I was rooting for them during last year's Final 4 all the way but this year, no way do I see them as a deserving Final 4 participant. Efes doesn't have a good team (frontcourt is a mess) but at least it would be some novelty in the Final 4.

 

[Guaiqueries2]

ps. 3 trivial (as opposed to flagrant and indisputed ones) fouls in the first 4 minutes on the competition icon, in a classic game? Some progress has to be made here if you ask me.

Icon or not should not matter in my opinion.
First, you do not whistle trivial fouls
then you allow one more step
Finally you make the refs deciding the most lucrative team to win the game.

 

[GL32]

Icon or not should not matter in my opinion.
First, you do not whistle trivial fouls
then you allow one more step
Finally you make the refs deciding the most lucrative team to win the game.

My point was not that icons should be untouchable obviously. Throwing them out of the game however as easily as you would get rid of a rookie who deserves a lesson gives you undoubtedly food for thought, that's all.

Besides that, I completely agree with you.

 

[Terrorizer2]

So Khimki grabbed 10 more rebounds that Panathinaikos in 14 games or 0.71/game! I don't know how I missed such a sexy and exciting detail, I thought that the Khimki girls were the best that this team had to give but I was obviously wrong!!!

You have no real counter-arguments, so obviously we were doomed to hear some regular trolling from you. I understand that talking about Khimki girls (are you jealous as it looks like Greece is short on woman's attractiveness since famed ancient times?) makes you feeling better than hurtful thinking about the simple fact that Khimki dished almost 4 assists more per game in this Euroleague. Khimki is coached by retard (even more idiotic than Pedoulakis), its main play-waster Planinic costs more with his non-existant defense than he helps with his often shaky offense and is a turnover-machine on the V-Span/Teodosic/DD level, the team overall has no winning mentality, always dilutes its wins over EL favourites with losses to some clearly inferior opponents and is even a better example of traditional Russian choking than CSKA itself. But the fact that Khimki played much more intelligent, clever, diverse and attractive basketball than Pao this season is perfectly clear to any person who knows something about this game. Yet Khimki wasted its real chances to go to the play-offs and Pao offered a great resistance to heavy favourite which was Barca. Hence team from Athens deserved respect for what they have achieved this year.

But I'm still happy with your loss in these series and many people on these boards share my feelings as some of the most arrogant, coarse and hypocritical members of this community happen to be Pao's fans (and sadly it doesn't surprise me). And just to piss you off, my farewell words in this topic: slimy DD can't compete even with injuries-plagued Navarro. JCN showed who's clutch when it mattered the most

P.S. This off-season Pao signed Big Sofo, Ukic and Maciulis and its fans still try to prove how much they are poorer than last season's Oly whose second most marquee signing (after Printezis) has to be contested between Hines and Antic. And let me add an icing on the cake: in 3 games in Barcelona Barca shot 43 free throws and Pao shot 46 free throws while in two games in Athens Barca shot 14 free throws and Pao shot 34. Let's talk about Barc'euro sign'lona and Cinderella-like Panathinaikos wihch never gets a help from refs

 

[CG2]

Congratulations to barca.
Pao reached the maximum this team could do.next year we will build with a more organised matter.

 

[Ariel Aduriz2]

Lorbek is just 29.Not a bad age certainly,but him playing like a washed up veteran fooled you i guess.

I know Lorbek's age.Some players play like veterans after 34-35 years old and others(Lorbek) after 29-30

I disagree. Panathinaikos played well this year in offence. There were a lot of highlights. especially diamantidis-lasme alley oops were something impressive. It was like watching payton-kemp, kidd-carter or something similar of nba in european arenas.

This team was the first team that played pick'n'roll, hard defense with full court press and generally i think that changed the european basketball the way it is played in both offense and defense.
and you cannot say that for a team that is the most successful one with 6 rings and at least 10 final four appearances the last 20 years. And i can remember many good games (especially the 2007 final pao won against CSKA Moscow with 93–91 was like an advertisement of how offense should be played in modern basketball).

And there were rosters that they played better offense than defense (e.g. 2001 rebraca, bodiroga, alvertis, gentile, kattash - 2009 siskauskas, diamantidis, spanoulis, jasiskevicius, batiste, pekovic, nikolas)

I don't think you are right

So for you 1-2 alley-oops in the game are what makes your offense attractive...Sluc Nancy does more alle-oops than you but no-one claims that they play pretty basketball
I cannot say that for a team with 6 rings???Maccabi also has rings and got 2 titles the previous decade...this doesn't mean that because they got 2 titles a few years ago that their level of basketball the current season and future seasons will be the same
If you haven't understand it yet you scored 64-66-65-60-53points(i didn't count the 1 overtime score)...Those scores didn't happen by accident.Your defense is great but your offense...no comment for that.
Also Cska/Pao are the teams that got the most ref help the past 10 years.It is hypocritical to claim otherwise when your team loses.
When panathinaikos won games with ref help Obradovic used to say that "the best team also wins against the referees" BUT now that you lost all you do is complain.You can't have it both ways.You need to decide if indeed the moto "the best team also wins against the referees" is true or false

 

[tyreke132]

Err, because PAO has actually won against the referees several times?

 

[Billy Bounce2]

The same old story: over-calling in the first half benching a half key players for both clubs ( DD, Barca bigs) , then trying to fix the situation by turning a blind eye to fouls in the second half.

So instead of enjoying both clubs best players fighting each other in the most epic battle EL has to offer , we were forced to watch Banks as play-maker vs Sada & Todorovic ... WTF ?

I really , really hope we won't see the same scenario in Oly - Efes game.