By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
Erick Green’s second stint in EuroLeague has led him to his first career Final Four. While his team, Olympiacos, has been there plenty of times and has won the trophy thrice, he’s completely fresh to the whole experience.
While a rookie, he certainly doesn’t feel that way. “I’ve played many big games in my life”, he told Eurohoops. “I’m not really worried about it. The environment I play in doesn’t make any difference. It doesn’t change anything. My goal is to come here and play my game. Do what my role tells me to do. Get it done for 40 mintues and help my team win.”
Last year another ex “Hokie”, Malcolm Delaney made his first appearance in a EuroLeague Final Four, with the colors of Lokomotiv Kuban.
Having been there before, Delaney, now a member of the Atlanta Hawks, had quite the advice to give to his former teammate in Virginia Tech university.
“Malcolm and I go way back,” Green said to Eurohoops. “We talked and he told me to just go out there and play my game. ‘Don’t get overhyped’, he said. Just respect your game and everything will fall into place. Score the ball, when you can, play defense and be hard. Then everything will take care of itself.”
Green and his teammates in Olympiacos lost both games against CSKA Moscow in the EuroLeague regular season. The “Army Men” pride themselves on displaying the most prolific offense in the competition, averaging 87 points per game.
So how do the Reds contain such a formidable opponent? “It’s important to stop them early,” Green believes. “They are offensive minded so have to go at them early and make them miss shots. Limit them from what they do well early on and I think we’ll be fine. They are a good team of coure. But we’re not going to get down. We’re going to play hard and give them everything we got. Hit them hard where it hurts.”
It’s not a secret that among Green’s ambitions is a return to the NBA. He never held it a secret since Day 1 he arrived in Olympiacos.
Thus it’s not surprising that he considers the match-up with Milos Teodosic and Nando De Colo, the most powerful backcourt combination in Europe as a great challenge. A strong opportunity to display his quality against two players that are widely considered as “NBA material”.
“It’s going to be a good matchip. You know I’ve played against some of the best in the world so I shouldn’t be worried about that. It’s going to be good to me actually. Another chance to prove myself. I want to show to everybody that I can play on the highest level.”