Panathinaikos failed to live up to its good reputation and lost to PAOK on a road game at Pilea indoor arena in an encounter that went into over-time, ending 77-76 in favor of the hosts for game 24 in the Greek League.
In the first half Panathinaikos found itself trailing even by 14 points, midway of the second period. The “greens” led by 6-3 (2’10’’) and later on 11-9 (4’50’’) tied with their opponents five times up to 10’25’’, scoreboard currently reading 19-19. From then on and all the way up to the break the home-team had first say in the matter. They made the most of every slip up Panathinaikos committed; its bad free-shot stats (7/13), its turnovers (9) but mostly its players’ negligence at the rebound. In the respective category Giorgos Kalafatakis’ players had full dominance accumulating 10-to-5 in the first quarter and at intermission 20 (10 offensive)-to-10.
All these factors jogged PAOK to 37-23 (15’) behind two free shots from Tsiaras who had already chipped in 10 points and gathered 6 rebounds, as had Dejan Tomasevic. Panathinaikos was ineffective in defense whilst it presented less than 50% in two-pointers, category in which it usually flaunts positive numbers. What it did manage was to cut its trail with an 8-0 run to 37-31, slightly before part 1 ended 41-32.
Batiste and Perperoglou closed the gap even more (41-37, 22’35’’), Tomasevic came to PAOK’s aid at this time (45-37, 24’15’’) before Drew Nicholas once more undertook the assignment to even things out in the game (45-45, 25’45’’) connecting with Batiste for a two-pointer and dialing long -distance twice to set things straight in his personal stats, getting from 1/4 to 3/6 in triples. Hatzivrettas sunk the three that put the “clover” in the lead (48-51, 29’55’’) a state that didn’t last long since at third quarter buzzer Johnsen made an impressive down town three to draw 51-51 with the “greens”.
Spanoulis and Pekovic paced their team to a +7 advantage (53-60, 33’) and Hatzivrettas added a helping hand to assist the “clover” in sailing ahead even further (55-64, 34’). PAOK though was determent to fight till the end. It exploited every opportunity its was given by Panathinaikos and made a come-back regaining the lead (67-66, 38’15’’) featuring Alexis Kiritsis and his team embarking on a foul strategy play since up to 37’ the hosts had been charged with only 1 foul (1-to-6) thus they had fouls to commit before the completion of the 40 minutes game-time. But the two games were destined to resolve their differences in 5 additional minutes since the game went into over-time, final score in regular time 68-68.
None of the two teams managed to get away up to the end of the OT, the game’s reigns constantly changing possession, Dejan Tomasevic(20 points, 15rbs) scoring the bucket that made the score 77-76 for PAOK, 2’’ left on the clock. Nothing changed until final buzzer since Nicholas tried though he did, was not able to score the buzzer beater shot.
Referees: Schinas, Tanatzis, Diamantis
Schinas, Tanatzis, Diamantis
Quarters: 19-17, 41-32, 51-51, 68-68 (F), 77-76 (OT)
PAOK (Kalafatakis): Johnsen 15, Kafkis 4, Simcak 2, Kiritsis 15, Tsiaras 10, Demertzis 5, Giannakidis 6, Tomasevic 10
Panathinaikos (Obradovic): Kecman, Spanoulis 19, Perperoglou 6 (10rbs, 5as), batiste 18, Fotsis 4, Hatzivrettas 8, Nicholas 19 (5as), Tsartsaris, Verginis, Pekovic 2
*Panathinaikos traveled to Thessaloniki without Diamantidis (ankle sprain) and Jasikevicius (tendinitis), Alvertis (knee discomfort).
QUOTES
OBRADOVIC:
“In our sport and in sports in general two things are granted, concentration and motive. They are elements that you must instrument if you wish to triumph and we instrumented neither one nor the other. Sadly although we prepared for this game stating that point distance of the two teams is meaningless and that PAOK has players with ego and dignity thus it is a very open and dangerous encounter, our response was not the appropriate one, especially in the first half of the game. In which it is easy to say that we were the outsider. In the second part the image was different. We were more focused and more willing and the game was called in the details, in over time. PAOK was over zealous and eager to fight for every ball in claim. Congratulation once more to PAOK and especially to Tomasevic”.
KALAFATAKIS:
“I really believed that we could prevail. We worked hard all week round. We agreed to enforce our rhythm, keep the opponent below 20 points in the first quarter and control rebounding. We lived up to our expectations and as time went by we believed even more that we could accomplish our goal”.
