What an evening for the greens, who sufficiently dominated Peristeri at its home in the “Andreas Papandreou” indoor stadium. From minute one down the stretch to final buzzer at every level they were the better opponent and swept Peristeri 111-66, not once having been threatened by the home-team.
The shooting stats alone could suffice for Panathinaikos to get the pure superlative on the floor. Only in the first quarter they had missed a single two-pointer (7-for-8) whilst at the conclusion of the first half statistical revenue red 13/14 twos, 10/12 free-throws and the pompous, extravagant 10/10 trifectas. Apart from this, the greens enforced pressure on every nook and cranny of the field. Result was to mount double digit distance for the first time at 7’20’’ (14-26) and in the 2nd quarter manage to swoosh away even further. Panathinaikos at 14’30’’ was up by 21 points (29-50) then up by 28 as the game went into intermission mode (38-66). Team-work, great connections that tallied 13 assists (Peristeri had 4 respectively), only 4 turnovers and the healthy appetite that the players instrumented on court were the keys to the creation of the clover conqueror image, clover which had its Vassilis Spanoulis chipping in 14 points (6/6 free throws, 1/1 two, 3/3 threes) in under 11 minutes of presence in bounds setting an index rating at 1.674, Drew Nicholas following him in the scoring list behind 12 points and 4/4 triples (1.254).
Return to the court led to +30 a gap, Antonis Fotsis scoring from the line to 38-68, same guy upping the ante to +32 flushing the ball notoriously in the rivals bucket (38-70). Nicholas marked +34 (40-74, 23’15’’), slightly later big man Pekovic got in fouling trouble behind 4 personals leaving his place to Mike Batiste, the latter mixing things up the game as the greens went “small on big screen” , Spanoulis floating into the key to be passed the ball from Batiste to score to +35 (43-78, 25’45’’). Vspan also marked 45-82 (+37, 26’30’’), Sarunas Jasikevicius adding up to +40 (56-96, 32’30’’) passing the torch to Dimitris Diamantidis who nailed the centurion hoop (60-100, 36’10’’). Georgi Shermadini who returned to the Greek League pushed even further to +47 (62-109, 39’), marking the clash’s greatest difference before curtains fell, final score at 66-111.
Referees: Christodoulou, Foufis, Vardalos
Quarters: 22-36, 38-66, 56-93, 66-111
Peristeri (Skourtopoulos): Hammonds 14, Agadakos 4, Papanikolopoulos 13, Mantzaris V. 7, Bramos 4, Gaines 1, Mantzaris Α. 2, Margaritis, Deligiannis, Nelson 9, Tsiaos 8, Arnold 4
Panathinaikos (Obradovic): Tepic 8, Spanoulis 20, Batiste 14 (5rbs), Fotsis 7, Nicholas 17, Tsartsaris 9, Diamantidis 9 (7as), Pekovic 10, Calathes 6, Shermadini 3, Verginis, Jasikevicius 8
*The encounter was attended by Thanassis Yannakopoulos and his brother Kostas and also approximately 300 Panathinaikos fans who supported their team through the entire game.
*Prior to tip-off the president of GS Peristeri Petros Mougiakos on behalf of the team honored Kostas Tsartsaris who had worn the team’s jersey from 1999 through 2002, before his got transacted to Panathinaikos.
