Olympiacos Piraeus vs. Real Madrid
Two of the goliaths of European basketball will battle for continental glory when the Reds and Los Blancos square off at Zalgirio Arena. These teams boast some of the top players in the competition with Olympiacos led by freshly-crowned MVP Sasha Vezenkov and three-time champion Kostas Sloukas. Real counters with All-EuroLeague First Team Members Walter Tavares, who is also the EuroLeague Best Defender, and Dzanan Musa.
Olympiacos swept the regular-season meetings between these teams this season with an 87-89 victory in Round 3 in the Spanish capital as Vezenkov went for 23 points and 12 boards and a 73-60 triumph in Greece in what was Real's lowest-scoring output of the season.
These teams both are blessed with experienced stars and have faced adversity. Olympiacos rallied from 12 points down at halftime with a record-setting third quarter in Friday’s first semifinal against AS Monaco. Real has now won four elimination games in a row after becoming the first team in competition history to erase a 0-2 deficit in the playoffs and trailing by 9 late in the second quarter of the semifinal. They have both had great seasons, but only one will be celebrating on Sunday night.