World-renowned as a master teacher of basketball, Aito Garcia Reneses holds a place as one of the most prestigious coaches in Europe. He won a silver medal at the 2008 Olympics to go with a ULEB Cup, two Korac Cups, nine Spanish Leagues and five Spanish Cup titles, just to name a few of his accomplishments in almost four decades on the benches of basketball powers like FC Barcelona, Joventut Badalona and Unicaja. Aito, as everyone in European basketball knows him, is also a regular contributor to the Mastermind Coaching Seminars of the Euroleague Basketball Institute. He joins Euroleague.net to give his coachs point of view and analysis on Turkish Airlines Euroleague games.

Never in my sports career have I talked about favorites. When I coach a smaller team, it doesn't matter, and in fact I like it, if we are considered favorites, because that helps to increase ambition. However, when the team I am coaching is bigger, it worries me when the favorite label is stuck on us because often it causes some members of the team to freeze. On the other hand, I was never as skilled as others in hanging the label of favorite on the rival teams. It's not totally true, but while referring to aspects like the one we are commenting right now, in private I used to say: "FAVORITES NEVER WIN."

Consider the two teams that landed at the Final Four in Istanbul as favorites: FC Barcelona Regal lost in the semis and CSKA Moscow almost fell in the first game to Panathinaikos. While the Barcelonans and Muscovites reached the Final Four with hardly any losses during the season, the Greek teams arrived in Istanbul with several defeats each. The best game in Istanbul, for me, was the one... more

World-renowned as a master teacher of basketball, Aito Garcia Reneses holds a place as one of the most prestigious coaches in Europe. He won a silver medal at the 2008 Olympics to go with a ULEB Cup, two Korac Cups, nine Spanish Leagues and five Spanish Cup titles, just to name a few of his accomplishments in almost four decades on the benches of basketball powers like FC Barcelona, Joventut Badalona and Unicaja. Aito, as everyone in European basketball knows him, is also a regular contributor to the Mastermind Coaching Seminars of the Euroleague Basketball Institute. He joins Euroleague.net to give his coachs point of view and analysis on Turkish Airlines Euroleague games.

It's curious that the team with the most wins in both the Turkish Airlines Euroleague and the Spanish League this season is not regarded as the top favorite. It's true that FC Barcelona Regal is not playing as flashy as in previous years, and that maybe the roster is inferior also, but that remains to be seen. There's no doubt that the Final Four in Istanbul and the domestic playoffs will either confirm or deny each current of opinion.

The strategy of the team of head coach Xavi Pascual is based, for the most part, on the taking advantage of the great qualities of Juan Carlos Navarro, who is having an irregular season for two reasons. The first one is because he is in the middle of a super long season that started with EuroBasket last summer, in which he had a great performance, perhaps even the best one of his brilliant career. The second reason is because a couple injuries made him lose his best form. Let's hope that he recovers completely for the Final Four and he is in good... more

World-renowned as a master teacher of basketball, Aito Garcia Reneses holds a place as one of the most prestigious coaches in Europe. He won a silver medal at the 2008 Olympics to go with a ULEB Cup, two Korac Cups, nine Spanish Leagues and five Spanish Cup titles, just to name a few of his accomplishments in almost four decades on the benches of basketball powers like FC Barcelona, Joventut Badalona and Unicaja. Aito, as everyone in European basketball knows him, is also a regular contributor to the Mastermind Coaching Seminars of the Euroleague Basketball Institute. He joins Euroleague.net to give his coachs point of view and analysis on Turkish Airlines Euroleague games.

After plenty of obstacles and a fifth playoff game against another classic team, Panathinaikos earned qualification to another Final Four.

Almost always, the Greens' performances during the season go from less to more, just like coach Zeljko Obradovic wants and plans. This year, as opposed to many of the others, Panathinaikos won't step into the semifinal as a favorite because the last obstacle it has before the title game is CSKA Moscow, a team that has shown the bigger potential so far this campaign. This factor, however, can be a little advantage for the Greens as they will have less pressure even though pressure has never been a big obstacle for Panathinaikos, as they have shown on countless occasions.

Panathinaikos is a team formed by players with strong character, starting with Dimitris Diamatidis, en excellent guard who scores from the long range, penetrates and even makes moves in the low post. He reads... more

World-renowned as a master teacher of basketball, Aito Garcia Reneses holds a place as one of the most prestigious coaches in Europe. He won a silver medal at the 2008 Olympics to go with a ULEB Cup, two Korac Cups, nine Spanish Leagues and five Spanish Cup titles, just to name a few of his accomplishments in almost four decades on the benches of basketball powers like FC Barcelona, Joventut Badalona and Unicaja. Aito, as everyone in European basketball knows him, is also a regular contributor to the Mastermind Coaching Seminars of the Euroleague Basketball Institute. He joins Euroleague.net to give his coachs point of view and analysis on Turkish Airlines Euroleague games.

CSKA Moscow has been the team playing the most brilliant basketball throughout the season. We'll see if this superiority is big enough so that the favorite label that everyone is putting on them doesn't become an insurmountable obstacle.

Many fans, who don't have the direct experience of coaching a team, say that having a team full of such good players as CSKA is not that hard because you hardly have to coach them, they play by themselves. Of course, I disagree with everyone who thinks that way and I believe that coach Jonas Kazlauskas is doing a great job.

Let's start the analysis on this team with point guard Milos Teodosic. I have always thought of him as a scorer but, apart from being that, we cannot deny his quality and his good direction of the game. Let's see him in Clip 1, as if he was not doing anything, feeding Nenad Krstic. But see how he lets go of the ball with a back pass? It's as though he wasn't... more