With the NBA playoffs at full speed in the conference finals, the playoffs in various European domestic leagues are in their decisive phase, too. And the nerves of players and fans are on edge right now, as you can see through our short notes on what has happened during the past few days.
The story of the day is, of course, the first game of the Greek Finals between Panathinaikos and Olympicaos. While both teams and fans met in Berlin without any kind of trouble, the old Greek rivalry was once again the theatre for stupid violence in the arena. The Olympiacos fans ruined their own team’s chances to win the opener in their arena, Peace and Friendship Stadium, by throwing a explosive projectile on the Panathinaikos bench with a little less than two minutes to go in the fourth quarter. Watch the damage done in the video below.
The violence continued, with several fans attacking police in the arena and more projectiles thrown onto the court and at Panathinaikos players. These kind of incidents MUST have consequences as they are not only highly unfair but also putting players, referees and fans in danger. ESAKE and Euroleague, YOU NEED TO ACT AGAINST THIS KIND OF VIOLENCE: Ban these IDIOTS forever from every arena in the world. Both teams showed in Berlin that they can meet without this kind of incident, but it seems impossible in Greece. I guess there is still a long way to go as long as fans of the teams spread videos like this.
Finally, the game was decided on the court with two free throws by Mike Batiste and a missed layup by Theo Papaloukas at the buzzer. But the victory could not really be appreciated by the Panathinaikos players beyond a kick of the ball and a sprint to the tunnel to get out of the arena.
After the game, several media outlets quoted Josh Childress, who had his best game of the season for Olympiacos this season, as saying he is thinking about leaving the team at the end of the season because of these incidents. On the other hand, Greek media are citing him, saying that the fans should have waited until the end of the game before starting to throw things. Sarcasm or not, Childress and Olympiacos will probably face highly aggressive fans during the next game of the series in Panathinaikos Athens’ arena.
UPDATE: Not sure where this rumor and these quotes on si.com and espn.com came from. I never said any of that stuff! quotes TrueHoop Childress Twitter account.
Cabezas wins it for Malaga
In Spain, highly favored Unicaja Malaga already faced elimination in the first playoff round after their opening loss at home against Gran Canaria. And it was once again Carlos Cabezas who saved his team with a nearly buzzer-beating drive to seal the deal and bring the series back to Malaga for the decisive game.
Fans of the New York Knicks may look at this clip particularly fondly, as several sources indicate that the team from the Big Apple is targeting the Spanish guard for next season.
Leaving Sixers head coach in Germany
Tony di Leo, this season’s head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers was present in Paderborn to check out the playoff game between Paderborn Baskets and ALBA Berlin. While he saw the massive surprise of a Paderborn win against the Euroleague Top 16 team, di Leo was probably not present to scout a player but to support his son Max who got invited to a camp of the German U16 National team in Paderborn. In fact, di Leo served several years as a head coach in Germany and his son Max opted to play for Germany this summer. We will see if he breaks into the rotation to earn a roster spot for this summer’s European championship.
[...] two minutes left. The Olympiakos fans reacted, um, poorly. Here’s video of the incident from Ball in Europe. (And yes, that’s a lit flare thrown at the Panathinkaikos [...]
Wow, espn (truehoop) just compared that incident with the murder of a fan by the Hell’s Angels 1969 at a Stones concert. Way to go, three cheers for unbiased journalism.
How about we vote for a police state where every form of misbehaviour is compared to 911 terrorist attacks? Obviously it is a travesty what went down at that finals, but it is not like all the drug dealers of athens gathered guns blazing and started to mow down players wearing green.
At least in Greece players don’t go ahead and hit fans over the head because they get some soda thrown at. They even endure flares as you see…
I think Truehoop would be wise to tone it down a bit, seems quite the double-standard and this awkward comparison seems a bit too morbid for my taste.
“…not dying is pretty awesome!”
Maybe the writer should try his rhetoric on american war policy and not on foreign sports, but I guess the greek fans failed to prevent him from having a reason to bash them and Oly failed to contend.
Stay classy, Euro-league. If it wants to be considered top-level basketball, it is going to have to clean this stuff up. The NBA players will take their “American pay cut” and end up going back…
@Josh Childress quotes from his Twitter account
Not sure where this rumor and these quotes on si.com and espn.com came from. I never said any of that stuff!
Euroleague can do nothing about this, as this incident happened in Game 1 of the A1 finals. Greek league may take actions, but I doubt it will be enough to prevent anyone from doing it again.
@Robbe: Sure, Euroleague can do something about it. Ban the team from Euroleague play! Or penalize them some points in the standings in pool play; start them with minus-five in the points column.
@Christophe: Damn, the Era of Misquote is truly upon us. How do SI and ESPN both report a manufactured quote from Josh F. Childress?????????
@Ron Burg: Yeah, i keep wondering what the hell those American city boys were thinking while that football hooligan stuff was going on. I mean, in the ‘States, we save the rioting for AFTER the game. Unless Ron Artest is involved.
@everyone: Damn, that “pao vs osfp” YouTube clip referenced above may be insidious in intent, but technical it’s really really good. Seriously, this is maybe the best 1.5-minute clips i’ve seen this year.
@Os: I doubt Euroleague has the right to just do that as the game where the incident took place was not part of the Euroleague competition. It was a Greek league game. I’m sure they cannot punish teams for incidents that didn’t take place on their territorry.
[...] Ballineurope berichtet über die Ausschreitungen beim ersten Finalspiel zwischen Olympiakos Piräus und Panathinaikos Athen. Blieb die Rivalität in Berlin beim Final Four dank massivem Sicherheitsaufgebot ruhig und wurde nur mit beeindruckenden Gesängen zelebriert. So hat es jetzt gekracht. Ich schließe mich der Forderung von Ballineurope an: You need to act against this kind of violence: Ban these idiots forever from every arena in the world. Both teams showed in Berlin that they can meet without this kind of incident, but it seems impossible in Greece. [...]
@Robbe
they may not have the right but they gave them an A-License. Nobody obliges them to do so, stadium security may be a criteria in distributing these licenses too.
They can’t because there is no Euroleague without CSKA, Maccabi and Panathinaikos.
@Christophe: Well, IF the official criteria of 60-30-10 play are indeed the [only] criteria, security shouldn’t play a role. But who knows …
just relaxe people. some bottles were thrown so what? was anybody hurt? aren`t there more serious probles to discuss than this shit? that s greece baby. our blood is too hot for ya