Panathinaikos added yet another victory on the road down the Euroleague championship by the final 80-68 against Armani Jeans Milano for day 6 of the tourney.
Panathinaikos embarked on an early tip-off 7-0 run to put foundation towards prevalence. It was merely a teaser of what was to follow in an encounter that hosted Sarunas Jasikevicius as one of the leading characters. It was the Lithuanian guard’s first appearance in an official game this season and the crowd welcomed him with a warm round of applaud urging him to return the heartfelt gesture as he stepped on court to get some action (at 8’10’’), initially with a few of his trademark distributions. Competitively, Panathinaikos seemed to be facing no trouble getting round the Italians, who were up against the absence of Alex Acer.
First quarter concluded in 27-12, the greens having picked up the pace and having sought out the aspired solutions, attacking either man-to-man or zone defense. The Italian team tried to get some breathers “stretching the D with the three”. After 29-12 (10’30’’) and 31-14 (10’45’’), they gained within 10 points (31-21, 12’20’’) but got no closer even as Zeljko Obradovic made substitution after substitution. Let it be noted that up to 13’ the clover head coach had cleared off the bench entirely. The break found the opponents at 44-32, the greens not even having broke a sweat while competing across from Armani Jeans Milano, guest team that headed towards the locker rooms behind 42% at threes (5/12), the only element that kept it alive in the clash. Panathinaikos in the respective category showed 25% (3/12) but was far better in twos (67% across form 50%), was dominating in rebounding (17 across form 10) and was less incorrect tallying only 8 turnovers while its visitor had 12.
Vassilis Spanoulis drained a pair of free-throws to up the ante to +18 (54-36, 24’), seeing on to a technical charged to Armani Jeans Milano, Piero Bucchi for protesting. A decision that allowed Panathinaikos to touch +20 for the first time in the match-up (56-36, 24’25’’) as Spanoulis and Diamantidis both went 1 for 2 from the line. Third quarter settled at 63-48 but alas fourth quarter did not commence in the best of omens for the home-team. The Italians exploited every mistake in the clover offense, ran, got to easy baskets getting actually quite close to their host, within only 6 points (63-57, 32’20’’). Mike Batiste stepped up to end the 9-0 monologue of Milano (65-57, 34’), Pekovic and Spanoulis chipped in to 69-57 (35’15’’), the latter unleashing a trifecta to 74-61 (36’40’’) seeing on to final buzzer score 80-68.
Referees: Drabikovsky (UKR), Herceg (CRO), Mikhaylov (RUS)
Quarters: 27-12, 44-32, 63-48, 80-68
Panathinaikos (Obradovic): Tepic 3, Spanoulis 8, Perperoglou 11, Batiste 12, Fotsis 8, Nicholas 5, Tsartsaris 4, Diamantidis 5, Pekovic 15, Calathes, Shermadini 4, Jasikevicius 4
Armani Jeans Milano (Bucchi): Mancinelli 3, Hall 10, Maciulis 17, Mordente 8, Finley 5, Bulleri 8, Rocca 6, Beard, Viggiano 9
*Yorgos Bogris, Dimitris Verginis and Jurica Golemac were not on the official roster.
*Drew Nicholas coming off his first made triple of the clash reached 200 valid threes in his Euroleague career.
