By Aris Barkas
Panathinaikos and Olympiacos had a nice Saturday evening in Thesaloniki, where they beat Aris and PAOK respectively and with 2-0 wins they qualified to the Greek League play offs semifinals.
Olympiacos had a relatively hard time against PAOK as the final score (68-61) suggests. The pride of the home team was evident in the court and for the first three quarters the Reds had a stiff competition. In the end of the third period Vasilis Spanoulis with seven straight points put Olympiacos up by 12 (53-41) and PAOK could not react.
The story in the game of Panathinaikos against Aris was different. Saras Jasikevicius ran the show with 10 points and 9 assists and the Greens were the boss (88-65), but coach Zeljko Obradovic still wants more from his team: “Some players must play much better. We must get to a better level as a team. There are some guys who play with excitement and others who don’t”.
Panathinaikos will play in the play offs semi finals against Kolossos, that won on Friday 73-67 in the home court of Kavala (2-0) and Olympiakos will face Panionios that beat Rethymno 74-67 (2-0).
PAOK – Olympiacos 61-68
PAOK: Bojovic, Stiggers 5, Arapis, Aleksic 5, Duvnjak 5, Dikoudis 12, Pettway 4 (8 r.), Pappas 15, Giannakidis 2, Kalles 13, Kalabakas, Tsakaleris
OLYMPIACOS: Hines 4, Law 9, Antic 12, Spanoulis 15, Dorsey 11 (8 r.), Pelekanos 4, Printezis 2, Papanikolaou 2, Mantzaris 6, Sloukas 3
Aris – Panathinaikos 65-88
ARIS: Mavroeidis 3, Kerush 7, Tapoutos 6, Tsairelis 5, Davis 4, Krusic 1, Bochoridis, Bogris 16 (8 r.), Muldrow 9, Verginis 9, Dimas 3, Vezenkov 2
PANATHINAIKOS: Maric 4, Perperoglou 5, Batiste 8, Logan 13, Sato 11, Tsartsaris, Diamantidis 7, Vougioukas 7, Calathes 5, Smith 10 (8 r.), Kaimakoglou 8, Jasikevicius 10 (9 as.)