Life and death: why Panathinaikos friendly will be anything but

When the Adelaide 36ers take to the court on Sunday against Greek giants Panathinaikos, there will be one person wearing navy blue with experience playing the European giants.

Sixers assistant coach Marko Marinovic came up against Panathinaikos in friendly games during his 19-year playing career at various clubs across the continent.

He was a Euro Cup champion with Valencia BC in 2010 and understands the passion for the game across Europe.

And he knows that despite Sunday’s match-up being labelled an exhibition game as part of the Pavlos Giannakopoulos Tournament, the game is likely to be anything but friendly.

“Basketball is a matter of life or death in Europe, you know you have to win every game,” Marinovic smiled.

“There is a big passionate fan base, you know, they are all like coming to cheer you. It's really different comparing it with any other country in the world.”

Marinovic was a keen viewer of Panathinaikos’ win over Serbian giants Partizan on Thursday night, keeping a close eye on this weekend’s rival as well as the team from his home country.

And despite Panathinaikos being very early in its pre-season with a coach and several players who only recently returned from the European championship, he was impressed with what he saw.

“They’re a really, really good team, you know, like two years ago they won the EuroLeague,” he said.

“Last year, they had some injuries, and that was the reason why they didn't win it again, but this year they are really good again. It's going to be really interesting to play against them.

“They’ve shown, even though they haven’t practiced a lot together, because their coach was with the Turkish national team and like half of the players were at the EuroBasket, they’re really good, even though (Thursday night) was the first game together and pre-season started only about 20 days ago in Europe.

“But, they have some new players and they’ve shown that even though it was an exhibition game, they are already looking good.”

Marinovic has himself only been back in Australia for a week, having spent the off-season coaching the Serbian youth team at the FIBA Under-20 EuroBasket tournament in Greece before joining the senior team as an assistant coach at the FIBA EuroBasket tournament played across Cyprus, Finland, Poland and Latvia.

The under 20 side finished fourth, losing the third-place game to France, while the senior side placed a disappointing tenth, unable to replicate the bronze medal it won at the Paris Olympics.

“The (Under 20s) played awesome the whole tournament,” Marinovic said.

“They played in the semi-final and didn’t win that, we didn’t end up with the medal, but they were all happy, they showed growth and that was the most important thing for me.

“The senior team we were very disappointed. Basketball is a very big thing in Serbia and before the tournament we beat Germany in Germany, and they won the gold medal, so we were big favourites to win the whole thing or at least get to the finals.

“We had some injuries and sickness and things we couldn’t control so even though it was a disappointing result, I felt very privileged to work with Nikola Jokić who is the best player in the world and coach  (Svetislav) Pešić, who is a legend in FIBA basketball, along with so many other superstars that play for the Serbian national team.

 “I’m also very grateful to the people at the Adelaide 36ers – Grant (Kelley), Nic (Barbato), Matt (Weston) and Mike (Wells) – for allowing me to be involved with the national teams in Serbia. I hope I represented the 36ers well.”

The Adelaide 36ers will take on Panathinaikos in Sydney on Sunday from 6:30pm ACST / 7:00pm AEST.

Watch the game live on Fox Sports 505, Kayo, and Disney+