Panathinaikos nailed quite a large victory span on a road game against Iraklis at the Ivanofio arena in views of game 7 of the HEBA League, ultimately prevailing by 87-44.
Neither team could seem to find its pace stepping on the floor. Turnovers and bad shooting range were on the daily menu. Panathinaikos led (2-5, 4’) behind 5 points off Dimitris Diamantidis, who though had already been charged with 2 personal fouls. Iraklis fought back, led (8-5, 4’50’’) but green response was immediate. An 8-0 run put them back in the driver’s seat, they were up by 7 at 8’ (11-18), before home-team in a packed to the rim home court managed to pick up the slack to a point shadow from their guests (20-22, 9’20’’). Second quarter was all clover game. Feisty defense and an unlucky to the bucket Iraklis behind 5-for-15 free throws and 0-for-7 threes’ stats in the entire first half of the clash, Zeljko Obradovic watched as his boys stepped further and further away from their rivals and allow their opponents to only 3 points in the entire second quarter. The partial 3-22 in this period of time presented Panathinaikos with a 24 point cushion at the break, sealed by a three unleashed by Mike Batiste to beat the half time buzzer.
The greens kept up the same tempo, game recommencing, to climb all the way up to 23-54 (22’), Tepic and Vougioukas scoring after having both been dished by Diamantidis, forcing Russo to request a time-out, sensing that the encounter was starting to get out of reach. From minute 15 and 23-33 formed by Agelakopoulos, Iraklis scored again behind Petrovic at 23’20’’ to 25-54 and cut the trail down to 31-54 (25’20’’) behind the first triple of the evening for Iraklis, drained by Everett. Slightly earlier Diamantidis had been charged with his third foul, swapping places on the floor with Nick Calathes. Home team fought back to 32-54 (26’45’’), before Romain Sato chipped in some more to his team’s tally to 32-57 (27’), Panathinaikos having experienced a 4 minute scoring draught, allowing its host to a 9-0 run. Sato added even further to 35-61 (28’50’’), Perperoglou marking 35-63 (29’10’’) and Calathes drilling a three to up the ante yet again to +31 (35-66, 29’30’’).
The gap continued to expand during the first few minutes in the forth quarter. Perperoglou at 33’ flexed the score to 37-74 (+37), whilst at 35’ Obradovic pulled youngster Fotis Zoubos off the bench, introducing him to the matchup. Panathinaikos continue containing its opponent, a pair of free throws swooshing the net by Milenko Tepic got the lead to +38 (40-78, 35’40’’), fellow youngster to Zoubos, Yannis Karamalegos being commanded to the game at 37’ . Curtains finally dropped on the floor behind official score 44-87.
Referees: Foufis, Psarianos, Poursanidis K.
Quarters: 20-25, 23-47, 37-66, 44-87
Iraklis (Russo): Everett 10, Baldwing 9, Demertzis 6, Papanikolopoulos, Agelakopoulos 3, Petrovic 4, Koprivica, Despos 4, Eitutavicius, Labropoulos 8
Panathinaikos (Obradovic): Tepic 10, Perperoglou 9, Batiste 5, Fotsis 1, Sato 20, Tsartsaris 5, Diamantidis 9, Vougioukas 10, Calathes 13, Karamalegos, Kaimakoglou 2, Zoubos 3
*Final +43 edge, is the greatest win Panathinaikos has ever accomplished versus Iraklis. The previous record stood at +29 back in 2004-05 season (88-59), whilst the greatest win the clover has ever managed to achieve in the Ivanofio stadium was +22 in 2000-01 (88-66).
Game quotes
Zeljko Obradovic got exactly what he was expecting from his players across from Iraklis and did not hide his pleasure in the press conference which followed after the encounter. “We are well aware of the problems Iraklis is facing. We were very aggressive and tried to contain our opponent, something we achieved. Congratulations to my players” Panathinaikos’s head coach stated only to add: “In every game we must incorporate different aspects to our competing fashion. It is wrong to always play in the same manner. The gap was great but Iraklis missed many free throws and a few clean shots. Overall I am very pleased from my players’ performance, we competed very well. We respect every opponent. I would like to congratulate Iraklis’ fans for their behavior during the entire game”.
