Panathinaikos nailed quite a tough road game against a feisty Panionios at its packed to the rim roaring home-court at the Nea Smyrni indoor stadium, prevailing by the final 80-76 for day 10 in the Greek League.
It took the clover quite some time to balance things out on the floor. It trailed after tip-off even by 8 (8-0), a situation that aided the hosts to enforce their own pace on court and hang on to the momentum in the clash. Green score breaker bucket finally landed at 2’20’’ behind Stratos Perperoglou (8-3) and from then on Panathinaikos essentially embarked on chasing its opponent in views of catching up with it in the scoring department. No matter how many times it managed to creep up to Panionios (12-11 at 7’, 17-16 at 8’20’’) the home-team always seemed to find ways of counteracting the advance, expanding the gap between rivals. Even when momentarily they seemed to be set off their game across from the clover’ s zone defense, still they got to solutions to step away from their guests once more (26-18 at 12’15’’, 28-20 at 13’, 30-22 at 14’30’’). Round about this point, coach Obradovic having already given his players quite a large chunk of his mind and having committed sub after sub trying to find an effective 5’ to remedy his team’s image up to now on the court, was when Panathinaikos started to kick into gear. Initially by feeding the ball to big man Peko in the paint (Obradovic used twin towers Pekovic and Batiste for quite some time) but mainly through Vassilis Spanoulis either scoring or breaching opponent defense in views of aiding his teammates in finding lanes towards the hole. Vspan pulled the tie-breaker trifecta, as per usual coming off the dribble (33-33, 18’20’’), Drew Nicholas copied him from down town to present Panathinaikos with its first lead in the encounter (35-36, 18’55’’), Spanoulis struck again from beyond the arc to 37-39 (19’20’’), seeing on to a 2rd quarter score fixing triple drained by psyched Sarunas Jasikevicius (40-42).
Pekovic made the most out of his frontcourt’s creativity converting every great pass into valid hoops for the clover, Panathinaikos cruising to a cozy +9 cushion (42-51, 22’30’’). Panionios managed to pick up the slack to 49-52 at 25’, Spanoulis had more to say on the matter as he stretched Panionios within 6 points in the following possession, coming off yet another nothing-but-net triple (49-55, 25’15’’) but Ivan Zoroski got 5 consecutive points of his own in to reestablish the gap once again at its three-point price (54-57, 26’10’’), forcing coach Obradovic to request a time-out. The greens mounted a +6 edge (54-60, 26’30’’) but Dimitris Papanikolaou decided to unleash yet another three-pointer from his arsenal to name the gap at its least possible price (61-62, 29’), seeing on to 61-64, 3rd quarter score. There was quite some ball-game left to be played out on the floor. Panathinaikos reached a +7 advantage (64-71, 34’25’’), Jasi currently “in the zone”, distributing the ball exquisitely to Mike and Peko. The Lithuanian Panathinaikos’ player was charged with an unsportsmanlike foul, 3’40’’ pending on the game clock, score at 66-73. Panionios got only a single point out of the trip to the line and the offense it was awarded, Jasikevicius marking 67-75 at the other end of the court, Batiste adding even further to 67-77 (37’) having been dished a “Harry-Potter-eat-your-heart-out” magical pass by Jasikevicius, Panionios scoring next to get the score to 69-77 (37’40’’). But still it was not a queue for the fat lady to appear on the floor. Elder cut the trail down to two points (75-77, the greens missed all three chances to add to their frail lead, Rice was charged with ball carrying, 29 seconds remaining on the clock, Spanoulis drew a foul from Bryant (22 seconds left), Span went one for two from the charity line, Rice went to the line to copy Span’s achievement to 76-78, before Mike Batiste headed towards the free-throw spot 8 seconds prior to the buzzer. Batiste poured in both awarded shots and marked the final score, 76-80.
Referees: Papadimitriou, Schinas, Tavoulareas
Quarters: 20-16, 40-42, 61-64, 76-80
Panionios (Moarkovic): Rice 12, Bryant 10, Zoroski 5, Papanikolaou 21, Efthimov, Charitopoulos 4, Kalabokis 5, Erceg 8, Jankovic, Athinaiou, Elder 11
Panathinaikos (Obradovic): Tepic, Spanoulis 18, Perperoglou 5, Batiste 9, Fotsis 9, Nicholas 3, Tsartsaris 4, Pekovic 19, Calathes, Jasikevicius 13
Game Quotes:
Zeljko Obradovic gave kudos to his players for a job well done through the holidays, whilst characterizing the victory against Panionios as one of great importance. The Serbian Head Coach of Panathinaikos stressed amongst other things: “It was a great game. Panionios plays well in its home-court and this was something we knew all too well. It started off in the game highly motivated whilst we took off poorly, having committed 6 turnovers already in the first quarter. In the ensuing game we became more focused and controlled the game mainly through defense. For us, it was a good chance to settle things in the encounter once and for all when we reached +10. Congratulations to my players who worked hard even throughout the holidays. A great win for us, this one today, since Panionios commits an exquisite game. We have a great deal of games ahead of us. We must remain focused. Up to now, the championship is quite competitive”. Nikola Pekovic on the other hand, stated: “Panionios committed a great game. We anticipated this atmosphere. We presented the way we must play in the rest of the season. We were up by 10, Panionios committed a come-back in the game, but in the end we made it”.
Finally Nenad Marcovic noted: “It was a tough game. Panathinaikos is a great team and managed to win at the very end, exploiting all the dry spells we experienced. If we would have won it would have been a fair result too, however we paid the price of all of our offensive mistakes”.
