By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Facu Campazzo (14 points, 10 assists) and Edy Tavares (15 points, 10 rebounds) posted double-doubles as Real Madrid beat Panathinaikos 96 – 78 at home in the EuroLeague Round 26 opener. The “Blancos” capture their fifth straight win in the 2019-2020 regular season to improve to 20 – 26. It was their 10th consecutive win overall over the Greek side.
“I’m very happy. We played a great second half. We have a lot of injured players and we know want to rest a bit,” Campazzo said to EuroLeague TV after the game. Anthony Randolph, Sergio Llull and Fabien Causeur (a last-minute absence) were out for Real but coach Pablo Laso saw the rest of his players producing what was needed. Gabriel Deck had 13 points, Jaycee Carroll 12 while Rudy Fernandez and Trey Thompkins scored 10 apiece. Nicolas Laprovittola added 10 points.
A few days after losing to Barcelona at home, Panathinaikos fell to the other Spanish powerhouse and dropped to 15-11. Nick Calathes (13 points, six assists), Ioannis Papapetrou (11 points, six rebounds), DeShaun Thomas (11 points) and Jimmer Fredette (11 points) were the top contributors for Rick Pitino’s team.
In a manner similar to the game vs. Barca, the “Greens” once again collapsed in the fourth quarter where their opponents outplayed them 23 – 13. Panathinaikos was always trailing but kept up with the hosts’ fiery offense until the beginning of the final period when Real had a 21 – 6 partial score to close the game in a dominant fashion.
An important result
Real Madrid coach Pablo Laso saw his players raising the level of their defensive output after the break en route to what he considers to be a rather important win.
“I think it was a very hard game for us from the beginning,” Laso said. “We had a lot of guys who couldn’t play. But I think everybody stepped up and gave their best. I think we always found somebody who could help us in the offensive end, but everyone played great team defense. We talked about this at halftime, and I think in the second half we were very solid at defensive rebounding, we controlled the pace of the game, and, finally, we got a very important victory against a great team.”
Photo: EuroLeague Basketball