Olympiakos and Valencia are favorites in the semi-final meetings
Final Four (F4) basketball Euroleague starts on Friday in the Athens Telecom Center. The semifinals are scheduled for Friday, while this season's final will be played on Sunday at 20 p.m.
In the first semi-final, which is scheduled to start at 17 p.m., Olympiacos of Athens and defending champion Fenerbahce will meet. Later, in the second semi-final at 20 p.m., two Spanish clubs will meet - Real Madrid and Valencia.
Real Madrid has won the Euroleague the most times, as many as 11, and among the semi-finalists, Olympiakos is closest to it in terms of the number of trophies with three titles, while Fenerbahçe has two trophies, and Valencia has not won the European champion's trophy until now.
In the quarter-finals, Olympiakos routinely defeated Monaco 3:0 in the series, while Fenerbahçe was better than the Lithuanian Zalgiris 3:1.
The Greek club finished the regular part of the season in first place, while Fenerbahçe was in fourth place. The previous season, Fenerbahçe became European champions, while Olympiakos finished third.
Both squads have no problems with injuries, so they will perform in the strongest possible squads.
Olympiakos is led by Euroleague MVP Sasha Vezenkov, who is averaging 19,2 points per game with 6,5 rebounds this season.
In addition to the Bulgarian basketball player, the guards Evan Fournier and Tyler Dorsey, who are offensively efficient and score double-digit points - 11,5 and 16,1, are also important for the game of Olympiakos. The team of coach Jorgos Barkokas relies on the Serbian center Nikola Milutinov, who is the best jumper in the Euroleague with an average of seven jumps.
On the other hand, Saras Jasikevicius' team was the best defensive team in the regular part of the Euroleague, allowing opponents 80,6 points on average.
The team of the current European champion is led by Americans Horton Tucker and Wade Baldwin. Tucker is the most effective with 15,7 points on average, while Baldwin scored 14,1 points per match, and he is also the team's best assister with 5,5 assists on average.
In the current part of the season, they met twice and recorded one victory each.
Bookmakers give the Olympiakos team the role of favorite.
Real Madrid defeated Maccabi Tel Aviv in four games (3:1) in the quarter-final series. On the other hand, Valencia reached the final four over Panathinaikos after a big turnaround, as the Spanish team overturned 2:0 in the series and won 3:2.
Real Madrid is currently the leader of the Spanish ACB league, while Valencia is fifth. However, Valencia finished the regular season in the Euroleague as second place, ahead of third place Real.
Real's coach Sergio Scariolo has problems with the staff, since the centers Walter Tavares and Alex Len will be absent from F4 due to injuries, so the Italian expert will be limited with options in the racket. The recently recovered Usman Garuba and wing center Trey Lyles will play in the center position.
Lyles is the best scorer of the Madrid team this season with 13,1 points on average. In addition to Lyles, Croatian Mario Hezonja (12,9 points) and Argentine Facundo Campazo (12,3 points) scored in double figures during the season for Madrid.
Valencia is this season's biggest surprise in European basketball. During the regular part of the season, Pedro Martinez's team was the most efficient with 90,8 points per game.
The best individual in the ranks of Valencia is Gian Montero, who averages 14,4 points. We should also mention the double digit Cameron Taylor, who records 11.8 points per game and is the team's best rebounder with 4,4 rebounds per game.
In the current part of the season, the Spanish rivals have met six times. Valencia won twice, while Real then won four in a row.
Bookmakers give a slight advantage to Valencia in this duel.
The weekly finale is scheduled for 20:00.
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