It was an easy afternoon for Panathinaikos who downed Panellinios 84-63 at home-court for day 2 of the Greek League, in a closed set game.
The greens started out a bit numb thus their guests managed to enforce a slow pace in the game that allowed them to an early lead at 5’40’’ (10-13). However, the clover caught-up fast, performed an 8-0 run and got on top in the clash (18-13, 6’50’’) not looking back from this minute forward in the encounter. First quarter score rested at 25-15 whilst Panellinios experienced a scoring draught from 7’10’’ (18-15) all the way up to 12’20’’ (31-17). A sweet three behind Vassilis Spanoulis at 18’45’’ set the gap at a +20 level (45-25, 18’45’’) and was expanded even further a little later as Stratos Perperoglou copied Vspan to drain a triple of his own (48-25, 20’).
Captain Dimitris Diamantidis had a whole deal of impact on the fluxing of the green’s image in the first half, while Drew Nicholas was making his shot “all day”. An important element to be added to justify the path the match-up seemed to be going down was Vougioukas and Ostojic getting into foul trouble early, both having been already charged with a couple of personals a piece and on the other hand, Panathinaikos’s good shooting range stats up to now, (10/13 in 2’s, 7/12 in 3’s) alongside its superiority so much in rebounding (17-10) as in assists department (12-3). Coach Obradovic had used 10 at of 12 players at hand, coach Zouros at the other bench had accordingly offered floor time to all but 1 of his boys, Efthimis Tsakaleris, who nevertheless did step on the floor even if only at 39’.
Game recommencing after the break, the hosts upped the ante to +27 (57-30, 23’30’’), Panellinios enforcing a short competing 5 combination but getting no closer than 17 points to its opponent (62-45, 27’), who during the same period of time committed certain mistakes that Panellinios tried to exploit to its best interest. The trail for the guests remained in deep waters as third quarter came to an end (67-50), Panellinios currently basing its offensive successes on a feisty Haralambidis who had loaded Panathinaikos’s basket with 16 points only in quarter 3, 20 in all up to this point of the game, shooting almost perfect in all three categories. Fourth quarter turned out to be of procedural nature, the clover holding strong all the way down to final buzzer, official game score 64-63.
Referees: Tanatzis, Foufis, Andrikopoulos
Quarters: 25-15, 48-25, 67-50, 84-63
Panathinaikos (Obradovic): Tepic 7, Spanoulis 8, Perperoglou 6, Fotsis 1, Golemac 8, Nicholas 18, Diamantidis 9, Pekovic 12, Calathes 12, Shermadini 3
Panellinios (Zouros): Xanthopoulos 2, Papamakarios 3, Haralambidis 23, Kalaitzis, Smith 11, Petroulas 4, Blackney 10, Davis 6, Vougioukas 2, Ostojic, Kolokas 2, Tsakaleris
*Panathinaikos’s official line-up did not include recovering Mike Batiste, Sarunas Jasikevicius and Kostas Tsartsaris.
