Fenerbahce vs. Olympiacos: Euroleague Championship preview

On Friday, the Euroleague Final Four Semifinal matches took place. Olympiacos beat CSKA Moscow, with Vassilis Spanoulis disappearing for three quarters and then turning into Kill Bill to completely destroy them… again.

Then, Fenerbahce completely overwhelmed everyone on Real Madrid besides Sergio Llull and Jaycee Carroll. So now these two teams will face off for the Euroleague Title. This is the first time these two teams will battle each other in the championship but that is the really the only significant first for this title game, as each team is full of Final Four experience.

Olympiacos has the same core of players that they had for their back-to-back Euroleague titles in 2012 and 2013 in Spanoulis, Kostas Papanikolaou, Georgios Printezis and Vangelis Mantzaris. Their head coach Ioannis Sfairopoulos coached them in the 2015 Final Four, where they lost to Real Madrid in the final.

Fenerbahce has plenty of experience as well. Their current team is still very similar to last year’s team who lost to CSKA in the Final, and they have some players still there from their Final Four appearance in 2015 where they lost to Real Madrid in the semifinals. Kostas Sloukas is the most experienced rotation player on the squad as he was a member of the back-to-back championship Olympiacos squad. And their Head Coach, Zeljko Obradovic, is the most successful coach in Euroleague history, with eight Euroleague titles to his name.

What can we expect from these two vastly experienced teams? A full-on leveling war, where players and coaches will be constantly trying to outsmart each other and guess their opponents next move. Both teams will have to grind for every single point they earn and truly do their best to play mistake-free basketball.

This is something we saw in the regular season meeting between these two teams as they split the two games they played, with the home team winning each one. In Round 15, Olympiacos won 71-62. Matt Lojeski, who won’t be available for the final, lead them in scoring for that match-up with 14 points. Khem Birch also had a good game for Olympiacos, finishing with a double-double — 10 points and 13 rebounds.

Fenerbahce was without All-Euroleague First Teamer Bogdan Bogdanovic for this game, so they were led by Jan Vesely who had one of his best games of the season, picking up a double-double as well with 22 points and 10 rebounds.

Olympiacos won the rebounding battle in Round 15, 40 to 36, but both teams turned the ball over at the same rate — Olympiacos finished with 13 and Fenerbahce finished 14. Where the Reds really separated themselves in this game was 3-point shooting. They shot 10-of-26 on the night in comparison to Fenerbahce’s poor 6-of-22 outing.

Olympiacos controlled the first three quarters of the game thanks to a solid early start, led by the Spanoulis-Birch pick-and-roll duo, and some transition baskets. Olympiacos led by 18 going into the fourth but Fenerbahce finally woke up thanks to a nine-point quarter from Bobby Dixon. A 10-0 run got the deficit down to four with two minutes to go, but a timeout from Sfairopoulos calmed things down and Olympiacos didn’t give up another field goal for the rest of the game.

The two teams met again in Round 23, and this game finished 67-64 with Fenerbahce coming out on top. Bogdanovic was back for this game and he returned with a vengeance, finishing with a game-high 27 points. Erick Green battled Bogdanovic as best he could for Olympiacos, finishing with 17 points.

Fenerbahce won the rebounding battle in this one, 38-31, but committed more turnovers, 12 compared to 9 by Olympiacos. Neither team shot well from downtown — both teams made eight 3s, Olympiacos shot 33 percent and Fenerbahce shot 29 percent from deep — but Fenerbahce made up for this by getting to the charity stripe more on the night and capitalized, shooting 17of-21 from there compared to the Reds 10-of-14.

Both teams will have extensive game plans for one another and will execute them terrifically, similar to how they did in their semifinal matchups. Olympiacos slowed down CSKA’s transition game and bullied them on the backboards. Then, when CSKA dared them to shoot, they knocked down their open looks. They also put CSKA in the pick-and-roll a lot, forcing their bigs to switch out onto the perimeter and took advantage of those mismatches.

The Reds will need to take a much different approach against Fenerbahce as the Turkish side is comfortable playing in a half-court setting, and they are a strong rebounding side, especially when they play Udoh and Vesely alongside each other. Fenerbahce center Ekpe Udoh is also very comfortable when switching onto perimeter players and Fener could also go small with Nikola Kalinic or Luigi Datome at the four, two players who can play perimeter defense as well.

Fenerbahce beat Real Madrid by applying a lot of ball pressure whenever Real threw the ball in the post, forcing players like Anthony Randolph and Gustavo Ayon to pass out of the post, something they weren’t comfortable doing. They also tested Euroleague Rising Star of the Year Luka Doncic’s mental toughness by daring him to make plays with the basketball.

On offense, Fenerbahce just played a beautiful team game as they zipped the ball around Real’s defense. Exposing gaping holes time and time again, finding open player after open player, Real Madrid was just chasing shadows for much of the game.

Fenerbahce will have to come up with something new for Olympiacos, as they have guards and bigs who are comfortable playing under pressure and know how to find the open player. They are also a fantastic defensive team, who won’t have lapses in concentration like Real Madrid did on Friday.

Next: Vassilis Spanoulis and Ekpe Udoh lead their teams to Euroleague Championship game

With these two teams matching up against each other so well, expect a very close game that comes down to the rebounding and turnover battle, as well as whatever team shoots better from 3-point range. Spanoulis-Bogdanovic and Udoh-Birch will be two decisive match-ups to watch, as well as role player battles between the likes of Nikola Kalinic and Papanikolaou.