MATCH OF THE ROUND: Nostalgia in Ljubljana
In the legendary Tivoli Hall in Ljubljana, Union Olimpija and Partizan NIS will play perhaps their most important game of the season. While Partizan fights for 5th place, Union Olimpija wishes to definitely avoid relegation.
In the legendary Tivoli Hall in Ljubljana, Union Olimpija and Partizan NIS will play perhaps their most important game of the season. While Partizan fights for 5th place, Union Olimpija wishes to definitely avoid relegation.
ABA League 26th round, Monday, 6.3.2016:
Where? Tivoli Hall, Ljubljana
When? 18:00
Story of the game: A true ABA League classic will take place in legendary Tivoli Hall in Ljubljana, a place where both Union Olimpija and Partizan NIS, the opponents in the match of the 26th round, have won the trophies for the winners of the regional league before. While Union Olimpija did it in 2002, in the first ever season of Goodyear League, Partizan NIS celebrated there in the 2008, when they managed to edge out Olimpija, which was at that time led by nobody else than current Partizan head coach Aleksandar Džikić, in the semi-final of the Final Four tournament of the NLB League.
This time the story is different. While Union Olimpija are currently placed on 8th place together with five more teams and need a victory to be completely calm when it comes to their desire to avoid relegation, Partizan NIS are fighting for the final fifth place in the ABA League standings. Currently they are alone at the fifth position, but in case they lost this round and Cibona would manage to beat Budućnost VOLI, while Zadar would be defeated by Sutjeska, Cibona would jump ahead of Partizan thanks to their better goal difference in the games between Partizan NIS and Cibona. So the victory is the only option and desire for the Belgrade team.
Match-up in focus: With the departure of team"s star player Zack Wright to Russia, Union Olimpija is weakened at the point guard position and more burden will fall on Dawan Robinson. It remains to be seen, how will he manage to deal with the challenge of both Jamar Wilson and Aleksandar Cvetković pressuring him when he will be in the possession of the ball. Of course, Luka Rupnik will be tested as well, since he has not been playing a lot over the recent period and an important task of assisting Robinson will be upon him this time in a extremely important game for the dragons.
