This week’s Euroleague gameday features what is probably the game of the week: Ettore Messina vs Zeljko Obradovic, Real Madrid vs Panathinaikos. In this frame Panathinaikos’ assistant coach Dimitris Itoudis comented on the attributes of Real for the club’s official website.

“Real is a very good team that have their problems, as we do regarding the absences. It is a team that is trying to embed Ettore Messina’s philosophy and this period of adjustment is very important. However the important thing is that they are winning. The’ve got five victories in the ACB, and are 1-1 in Euroleague, dropping the premiere in overtime.

They are a high-aiming team, complete in every position. Bullock as well as Hansen are great scorers and will get many single or double screens. Kaukenas is very experienced and can create pick’n’roll situation for himself and others, while he can also get a screen and shoot. They have two point guards to set the plays. Prigioni especially, is a masterming with huge experience. He will set the plays, run the correct systems and “read” the game correctly. Llull is a completely different player and apears to be completing Prigioni’s attributes. He is more explosive, runs the court better, he’s a better athlete, but he can shoot good as well. Real also has what I call “light forward centers” in Darjus Lavrinovic, Jorge Garbajosa and Novica Velickovic, who are able to paly one-on-one, open defenses and attack both from outside and inside. The can do that since they all can shoot threes. They also have experienced De Miguel while we don’t know if Hervele is going to play. He usually plays in the ACB, but not Euroleague, in any case he belongs to the category of the afore mentioned three bigs.

Defensively they play a very agressive man-to-man. They played their best defensive game against Bilbao, stealing a lot of balls and playing the pcik’n’roll very good. They rebounded good and Bullock had a very good game. It is not at all unlikely of course that they will play some zone defense.

In general we are talking of an athletic team, with high goals that can “read” games very good. It will be a good test for us because of the opponent and they fact that we play away. They court is tough, but we’ve had good games there and our target is the usual this time too.”