Panathinaikos defeated Khimki at the closing of the “Love Cyprus Basketball Tournament” at the “Tasos Papadopoulos-Eleftheria” indoor stadium in Nicosia. A closing marked by “three-leaf clover” domination of the tourney hosting Dimitris Diamantidis as the man of the hour in the final plays of the encounter. Nick Calathes was named MVP of the event.
The first half of the clash featured the technical teams trialing, introducing all sorts of formations to the game and making many remarks on all that took place on court. From Panathinaikos’s side tip-off was faced by Spanoulis-Diamantidis-Tepic-Fotsis and Pekovic whilst Sergio Scariolo opted for Lopeth-McCarty-Langford-Jankunas and Javtokas, the latter nevertheless being charged with his third personal already at minute 4, leading Mozgov off the bench to action.
The “greens” led by 4-2 (2’) and then 8-7 (3’10’’) trading reigns with Khimki at 7’30’’ (13-19), the Russian team holding on to top spot all the way up to the first minutes in the second quarter (19-24 at 10’, 21-24 at 10’40’’). Panathinaikos picked up the pace and improve its performance mainly through defense, enforcing pressure but also capitalizing on steals to run on fast breaks. Behind a partial 10-1 run (28-30 at 14’, 38-51 at 16’50’’) it flew ahead, although a pair of buckets by Langford that cut the trail down to two (38-36, 17’) forced coach Obradovic to a time-out, half-time score 43-36 being set as Fotsis and Nicholas shared baskets for Panathinaikos.
The tone had been set and although substitutions continued on the “green” bench, the lead was efficiently resting in Panathinaikos’s court-yard, gap expanding even to an 11 point distance (55-44, 25’) praise to a triple by Nicholas. Khimki of course never stood far behind, neither gave up in the battle never managing though to lead as third quarter ended 61-53.
Disappointing ball circulation in offense and negligence in certain plays in backcourt allowed the Russians to commit a come-back, beginning with a couple of threes by Fridzon. Moscov pulled the tie-breaker (64-64, 34’) pouring in a charity shot, but Drew Nicholas ended the siege by dialing long distance (67-64, 34’50’’). The American “three-leaf clover” guard stared in his team’s succeeding offense also as he beat the offense-clock by unleashing a way-beyond-the-arc trifecta-plus free-shot, making the most out of his 4-point-play (71-66, 36’10’’). The Russians refused to throw in the white towel, exploited Pekovic’s fouling trouble (4pf) and got to lead at 38’ by 1 (71-72). 1’40’’ left on the clock the Montenegrian was sent-off whistle to an offensive foul. Diamantidis snatched the defensive board in the next play, made two free-shots (73-72, 38’40’’), revisited the line and copied his previous actions (75-72, 39’10’’) and remained the owner of the leading part as he pinched the ball in the next defense intercepting his rivals’ attempt to throw in the ball from the base-line. His third drawn foul in a row followed through to ½ charity-shots (76-72, 39’50’’). The “clover” captain repeated the familiar procedure once more to drain two final shots from the line up to 78-72 end-of-game score, Panathinaikos surfacing as the first seed of the tourney.
Referees: Papadamou, Dimitriou, Christofidis
Quarters: 19-24, 43-36, 51-53, 78-72
Panathinaikos (Obradovic): Tepic 2, Spanoulis 4, Perperoglou 6, Fotsis 9, Nicholas 15, Diamantidis 16, Pekovic 20, Calathes 4, Bogris 2
Khimki (Scariolo): Langford 16, Fridzon 13, Toporov, Cabezas 4, Dimitriev 2, Jankunas 5, Goubanov 1, Javtokas 3, Lopez 7, McCarty 16, Mozgov 5
*In the previous encounter APOEL defeated Keravnos Strovolou 78-74 for third spot in the tourney.
