By Lefteris Moutis/ moutis@eurohoops.net
It was almost an exhibition game with Juan Carlos Navarro and Sarunas Jasikevicius sitting out. Barcelona won third place in the Euroleague Final Four by beating Panathinaikos 74-69, although there is little consolation in that for the Catalans. Blaugrana and Greens were already thinking their domestic play offs, specially the team of Zeljko Obradovic that starts the Greek Finals against Olympiacos on Thursday.
The story of the game was the outburst of Panathinaikos’ fans before and during the match. On Saturday there were some skirmishes between them and fans of Olympiacos and Galatasaray (their football team won the Turkish championship), but on Sunday they attacked three buses of Olympiacos’ fans and they had anti-Euroleague banners inside the court, because of the refereeing decisions in the semifinal against CSKA Moscow. Nine Olympiacos’ fans were injured during the attack and one of them is in serious condition.
Panathinaikos – Barcelona 69-74
PANATHINAIKOS: Maric 13 (11 r.), Perperoglou 2, Batiste 2. Logan 11, Sato, Tsartsaris 4 (7 r.), Diamantidis 17, Vougioukas 4, Calathes 9, Smith 1, Kaimakoglou 6
BARCELONA: Sada 5, Huertas 21, Perovic 2, Vazquez 6, Wallace 12, Ingles 13, Ndong 2, Rabaseda 4, Lorbek, Eidson 5, Mickeal 4
See the press conference and the quotes of the third place game.