Panathinaikos - Red Star

International - Euroleague, Round 28

On Tuesday night, Panathinaikos lost to Monaco by 84:70. That was their sixth consecutive defeat in the Euroleague. Head coach Dejan Radonjic was fired a couple of weeks ago, but no reaction from players happened. They allowed the opponent to score more than 80 points again, plus now the offense didn't work either. Dwayne Bacon and Derrick Williams are key players for this team and when one of them fails to score a lot of points, Panathinaikos' chances to beat anyone in this competition are very slim. That will be the case in this game as well. They need both of them in very good mood.

Although Anadolu Efes arrived in Belgrade without Shane Larkin and Vasilije Micic, this doesn’t diminish the important victory achieved by Red Star. Reigning ABA League champion still has a chance to play in the Euroleague quaretrfinals. They need to win six of their last seven games and will likely finish inside top 8. Backcourt with Facundo Campazzo, Luca Vildoza and Nemanja Nedovic is perhaps the most powerful in Europe at this moment, and when some other players like Ognjen Dobric or Filip Petrusev join, it is extremely difficult to slow down red and whites. The problem in the past couple of weeks was an uncharacteristically weak defense and that is something that coach Dusko Ivanovic paid the most attention to.

In Athens, two teams with completely different situations will play against each other. Red Star must win if they want to continue race for top 8, while Panathinaikos has no result motive. Dusko Ivanovic is an incomparably more experienced coach than Christos Serelis, and Red Star roster is much more talented than Panathinaikos roster. The only advantage home team could have would be the crowd, but OAKA has been nearly empty for months so that won't be a factor in this clash either. All mentioned things indicates that visitors will return to Belgrade with an important win from Greece.