A long basketball weekend comes to it's end when CSKA Moscow and Panathinaikos face each other in tonight's final. We could see two great semifinal games on Friday and also best promotion for the European basketball. And the winner of the games could also have been the other side, but two veteran players from Lithuania showed a great second half game and helped their teams to reach a final spot.
With some nice team defense and a brilliant second half performance by Euroleague veteran Ramunas Siskauskas CSKA Moscow was able to beat Barcelona and secure the first spot in the final. Former Blue Devil Trajan Langdon was the other notable player on the Russian team, who are looking for a repeat of the last year title. On the other side Juan Carlos Navarro didn't defend that well, but was selected for the best player in the Euroleague regular season and received the MVP trophy yesterday. Barcelona coach Pascual had also some questionable decisions and prefered to start Ersan Ilysova of the bench, which resulted in one of the worst season games of the Turkish power forward.
The other semifinal offered even more quality and thrill, as Panathinakos pass big rival Olympiacos. Sarunas Jaskevicius made his best game since his arrival to PAO after two disappointed years in the NBA, and like his teammate from Lithuania national squad, he scored most of his points during the second half. Nikola Pekovic from Montenegro showed why he'll become the successor of Nikola Vujcic as the best Euroleague Big Man.
CSKA and PAO are for sure the best teams in europe and it's very hard to predict who'll win the tonight's game.
Although Ettore Messina has won more trophies than any other Euroleague coach, he was not able to win against Zeljko Obradovic during his long career. Since he take over CSKA Moscow he lost all three games againist Panathinakos. The whole story started in 1991/92 when Obradovic and his team Partizan Belgrade beat Messina's Kinder Bologna in the Quarterfinals of Europen Champions Cup.
Two years ago, when PAO beat CSKA in the final, Ramunas Siskauskas was the best player on the Greece team, but the MVP trophy was given to Dimitrios Diamantidis 'cause the Final Four was held in Athens.
At the moment there are representatives from almost every NBA team in Berlin. Even if most experts says how Messina will probably stay in Europe, i'm still wondering why the Toronto Raptors are represented by three guys in Bryan Colangelo, Maurizio Gherardini and Masai Ujiri.
Lietuvos Rytas and once again FMP Belgrad have made it to the Euroleague Basketball Nike International Junior Tournament final.
Josip Stjepanović, CroHoops.com correspondent reporting from his hometown Berlin
