Two proud Euroleague teams will face off for bragging rights on Thursday when Montepaschi Siena hosts Efes Pilsen.
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The fans of Siena will welcome back two former heroes for the night, Efes head coach Ergin Ataman, who lead the club to its first Euroleague Final Four in 2003, and Bootsy Thornton, who guided the team to a pair of Final Fours as a player.
The Italian and Turkish champs enter the game tied with 2-3 records and the winner will claim third place in Group F, but cannot advance higher due to respective tiebreak disadvantages. As a result, this will be both teams’ farewell to the Euroleague for this season.
Ataman and Montepaschi coach Simone Pianigiani could both choose to use more creative lineups with upcoming domestic contests on their minds, however both are sure to be committed to winning and finishing the season on a high note. Montepaschi will also want to extend its home-court winning streak to six games.
Montepaschi has lost only once all season at home, while Efes has won just once on the road. Nevertheless, Efes may find a comfort level in Siena as Bootsy is one of five players on the Efes roster to have previously played in Italy. Efes scored an 88-78 win over Siena last month in Istanbul as Mario Kasun shined with 17 points, 9 rebounds and 2 blocks in just 18 minutes.
Kasun will team with Kaya Peker and Ermal Kuqo to try and make some noise in the paint, where they’ll face Montepaschi’s deep frontline of Ben Eze, Shaun Stonerook, Ksistof Lavrinovic, Denits Marconato and Uros Slokar. Meanwhile Bootsy leads a perimeter rotation filled with stars like scorers Charles Smith, Igor Rakocevic and Preston Shumpert and the athletic Sinan Guler plus playmakers Kerem Tunceri, Ender Arslan and Bojan Popovic. All-Euroleague point guard Terrell McIntyre leads the Siena attack, which also features David Hawkins, Henry Domercant, Nikos Zisis and small forward Romain Sato in the backcourt.
Ultimately, this figures to be an entertaining game as neither team will face too much pressure as they look to finish their Euroleague campaigns with some smiles.