Panathinaikos held fast on its Greek League champion title. Since 2003 and for the 8th consecutive time the clover won the title defeating Olympiakos in its home at “The Piece and Friendship” Stadium after a more than dramatic encounter, marked by many-many interruptions and a to some extent fans stands evacuation. Team withdraw once and for all with 1’03’’ pending on the game clock, score at that time 69-76. They never returned on court to play out the last minute since the referees did as they had announced and stopped the game the moment items started to fly through the air towards the court, According to the sheet of the game the clash had been resolved at 0-20, Olympiakos paying the price for the incidents.
Home-team was the one that broke away from tip-off as the better opponent on the floor. They pulled an 11-0 run (4’), Panathinaikos getting its name up on the score board from the line to reached to 19-7 (7’), 8 turnovers already in the 1st quarter and not a single two-pointer in sight! Vassilis Spanoulis’s presence, player who seemed to have picked up exactly where he had left off in the previous matchup, changed the entire tempo of the battle, pressure was enhanced by all players and on full court range. A pair of triples off Vspan and the bold performance from Kostas Tsartsaris aided Panathinaikos to make the great overcome in the clash as it went for a partial 23-5 to managed to lead 30-24 (16’) as the game went into recess, half-time score 31-38. Batiste joined forces with Spanoulis as the game recommenced, at 23’ the score board red 37-46 and at this point the game went for its greatest interruption. As the teams returned to the floor. Competitive-wise Panathinaikos had lost nothing of its rhythm, players even while in the locker rooms, awaiting the decision of the refs and the officials, the district attorney and the police, stating determent and prepared to reach victory. The ruling of a fans stands evacuation was abided towards to the most of its extent, since quite a few fans remained in the area, but where guided towards the sides behind both opposing backboards. In spite of all this the greens having taking the reigns of the game behind big-man Peko, got back up in the encounter. Beginning of 4th quarter saw Batiste-Pekovic-Tsartsaris all in fouling trouble, with four fouls a pop, however Panathinaikos was up by 9 (54-63). The green cushion got up to 10 (59-69), was cut backed down to 4 (67-71, 36’), however consecutive offensive boards nailed by Mike Batiste renewed the clover’s offences, Nicholas to the rescue this time as he went for a crucial 3-poiunt-play (69-75), the game ultimately coming to a full stop after a missed three form Teodosic when a new interruption was committed, this time due to objects flying into the court from the fans’ stands. So, at minute 39 of the encounter, Panathinaikos 11 years after its first title in the red home-court , conquered yet another Greek League title in the respective arena. The first during Zeljko Obradovic-and Dimitris Itoudis-era to be succeeded in such a manner in this stadium.
Referees: Voreadis, Gontas, Koromilas
Quarters: 19-12, 32-38, 54-63, 69-76
Olympiakos (Yannakis): Papaloukas 2, Penn 7, Childress 10, Vujcic, Vassilopoulos, Bourousis 15, Beverly 1, Kleiza 11, Mavrokefalidis 4, Teodosic, 10, Schortsanitis
Panathinaikos (Obradovic): Shermadini, Tepic 3, Spanoulis 15 (5rbs, 3as), Perperoglou, Batiste 20 (11rbs), Fotsis 2, Jasikevicius 6 (4as), Nicholas 13, Tsartsaris 8, Diamantidis 2 (4as, 4stl), Pekovic 7, Calathes
