Panathinaikos left the Olympiakos home arena, final score at 77-75 for day 20 in the Greek League.
It was undoubtedly a down to the wire encounter, no opponent getting to a secure advantage in the game, tension and heavy atmosphere being present from minute one. The hosts led in the score for the better part of the first 20 minutes, not being able though to dominate their rival and keep it at a stable trail, Panathinaikos finding his go-to-guy in the face of a different player every time there was a need for someone to step up. Offensive show was ruled initially by Sarunas Jasikevicius who led the “Greens” chipping in 13 points, measurable assistance being provided by Perperoglou, Batiste and Spanoulis. The latter presented his team with a 3 point edge at conclusion of the first quarter (22-25). The guests returning, answered with a 7-to-0 run and made it 29-25 (21’50’’), Panathinaikos up to this point having already committed 4 team fouls! Its opponent managed to get to a +7 lead (39-32, 26’10’’) exploiting to its best features a technical foul charged to Zeljko Obradovic (earlier on at 9’37’’ Papaloukas had also been charged with a technical, after protesting to the official committee). Polished up defense and wiser choices in frontcourt closed the gap and Mike Batiste’s 6 consecutive points got the “Greens” to a two-point distance, intermission finding teams at 45-43.
Interesting number aspects were Nikola Pekovic’s 3 personal fouls already (the only player on court by now with so many fouls), Drew Nicholas who was in the starting 5 but until minute 2 had already committed two fouls and was benched by Obradovic, Panathinaikos had 4-out of-4 triples in the first quarter but also 5 turnovers whilst in the second quarter it had 0-out of-1 threes and 2 turnovers.
The “clover” came to trail even by 8 in the third quarter, Greer being on a roll at this time, all the way up to 56-48 (27’50’’). Spanoulis sunk another trifecta (the first since Panathinaikos’ perfect first quarter three-pointer performance), reduced to 59-55, before the score 61-55 marked the fulfillment of 30 minutes into the game. The gap expanded again and touched a double digit fashion for the first time in the encounter (69-59, 34’10’’). The game was far but ended. Panathinaikos expressed its come-back investing on Spanoulis’ tenacity, Batiste’s eagerness and Antonis Fotsis who acted as a deep threat and unleashed a way above the arc three to tie at 71-71 (38’). Greer got a single charity shot to make the score 74-73, was copied by Vasilopoulos who also got 1-out of-2 free shots (75-73, 39’10’’), Batiste evened things out to 75-75, Vasilopoulos drove to make it 77-75, 3’’3 left on the clock. This was the score that saw the final buzzer.
Referees: Pitsilkas, Koukoulekidis, Tanatzis
Quarters: 22-25, 45-43, 61-55, 77-75
Olympiakos (Giannakis): Papaloukas 9, Pelekanos 2, Vujcic 14, Bourousis 18, Halperin 11, Greer 13, Pargo 6, Vasilopoulos 3, Schortsanitis, Erceg 1
Panathinaikos (Obradovic): Spanoulis 19, Perperoglou 9, Batiste 19 (9rbs), Fotsis 5, Nicholas, Tsartsaris, Diamantidis 3(8rbs, 4as), Pekovic 5, Jasikevicius 15 (4as)
*Fragiskos Alvertis, Dimitris Verginis and Giorgi Shermadini were not included in the official line up.
