Facing a very shot-valid Barcelona, Panathinaikos was unable to gain what it aimed for, meaning the win at OAKA stadium. It was defeated 87-76 by the Catalans who tallied 13-out of-30 three-pointers.
In his initial 5 Zeljko Obradovic used Diamantidis-Jasikevicius-Hatzivrettas-Batiste-Tsartsaris across from Sada-Basile-Navarro-Ilyasova-Vazquez, Xavier Pascual’s pick from Barcelona’s bench. The Catalan coach matched-up Sada with Diamantidis exactly as he had done in the game in Barcelona. It is the only two Euroleague games where this particular player has been on the starting line-up for the “blau-granas”. It was the latter who started off on the right foot in the encounter. Accumulating four offensive rebounds already from the first quarter, 6-out of-11 threes and 8 assists whilst in the same period of time Panathinaikos summed up 7 turnovers, it led 25-18 in the first ten minutes game time. The “Greens’” trail expanded even further all the way up to 18 points (24-44, 16’40), featuring Barcelona exploiting every single missed shot or mistake their opponent committed to run the open field , not to mention its felicity in three-pointers, which was a granted fact. Threes from Drew Nicholas and good collaborations between Spanoulis and Pekovic offered a few breathers to Panathinaikos; it managed to close the gap to 11 points (38-49) hosting “Vspan”Spanoulis as its “go-to-guy”. Spanoulis found many sought for ways to breach opponent defense and had chipped in 8 points half way through the encounter while Navarro and Lakovic had the scarce 3 and 5 points respectively, but major damage came from Basile’s threes (4-out of-7) and Andersen’s 12-point offering. Second quarter found the “Greens” improved turnover-wise, since they reduced them down to two, a much pleasing incident for coach Obradovic, though clearing off the glass was still a Spanish matter (9-to-14 with 6 Catalan offensive ones in the pile) and assists were double in favor of the visitors (7-to-14).
After the break Panathinaikos heaved the difference to 7 points (42-49 at 21’40’’ and 44-51 at 22’), but Barcelona was standing its ground and came through once more (49-68 at 28’30’’) mostly thanks to triples, as good as 13-out-of-26 up to minute 30, only to drift away again to a +20 margin (53-73, 31’50’’). A triphecta connected on by Vassilis Spanoulis broke the trend for the Spaniards followed by a three-point-play inspired by Mike Batiste (59-73, 33’). An unsportsmanlike foul though, charged to Jasikevicius on Barton jogged the visitors to get away yet again (61-77, 34’) but the “three-leaf-clover-team” was not ready to through in the towel. The gap was pushed back to 8 (71-79 at 36’30’’) but it was not enough to cut it. Victory belonged to the visitors, buzzer sounding; final score at 76-87.
Referees: Lamonica, Dozai, Latisevs
Quarters: 18-25, 38-49, 53-68, 76-87
Panathinaikos (Obradovic): Kecman, Spanoulis 13 (5as), Perperoglou 2, Batiste 21 (7rbs), Fotsis 3, Hatzivrettas, Nicholas 11, Tsartsaris 5, Diamantidis 5, Pekovic 7, Sakota, Jasikevicius 9
Barcelona (Pascual): Basile 16 (4/9 threes), Barton 6, Lakovic 7, Navarro 9, Andersen 22, Vazquez 6, Ilyasova 8, Sada 6, Santiago, Grimau 7
