Zenit St Petersburg soared into the playoffs with the highest scoring total of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season in a resounding 112-83 home win against visiting Panathinaikos OPAP Athens on Monday.
Zenit finished the regular season with a 20-14 record to make the playoffs in eighth place, one victory ahead of Valencia Basket, which would have gone to the playoffs in a tiebreaker had Zenit lost. Zenit will face first-place FC Barcelona in the best-of-five playoffs starting April 21.
Zenit scored the game's first 11 points, and though Panathinaikos got as close as 49-45 shortly after halftime, the lead was never really challenged and the hosts took off from there for leads as high as 29 points. Kevin Pangos set Zenit's club scoring mark with 33 points, 7-for-14 three-point shooting, and dished 11 assists. Will Thomas didn't miss a shot on his way to 18 points, while Billy Baron scored 12, Arturas Gudaitis and Mateusz Ponitka 11 each. Panathinaikos, which fell to 11-22 and still has one game remaining, got 20 points from Nemanja Nedovic, 16 from Ioannis Papapetrou and 10 from Aaron White.
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