By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Six players scored in double figures as CSKA Moscow crushed Panathinaikos Athens 97 – 66 on the road to capture its second straight win in EuroLeague and improve its record to 19-9. This was the third consecutive and sixth loss in the last seven games for Panathinaikos that dropped to 14 – 14. The Greens suffered their biggest defeat ever in EuroLeague by losing by 31.
Darrun Hilliard scored a game-high 21 points while draining back-to-back triples in the third period when Panathinaikos was making a comeback attempt. Mike James added 18 points and five assists and Kyle Hines 13 points plus eight rebounds along with a tremendous effort on the defensive end.
“The first time we played them they outrebounded us, they outhustled us, they played better than us and were more physical. So we wanted to establish ourselves and we did a good job, having 48 rebounds, playing great defense and holding them to under 70 points. That was the key and it will be the key until the end of the season,” Hines said to EuroLeague TV after the game.
DeShaun Thomas (12 points) and Nick Calathes (10 points) were the only Panathinaikos players scoring in double-digit numbers. The latter took the 2nd spot EuroLeague’s all-time assist leaders list early in the match but couldn’t enjoy his accomplishment following his team’s loss.
CSKA was at the driver’s seat from start to finish thanks to superior shooting and by dominating the battle of the rebounds. Dimitris Itoudis’ players outrebounded their opponents 25 – 17 at halftime while collecting eight offensive rebounds.
Following the 1/2 from beyond the arc in the defeat to Olympiacos, Panathinaikos finished the game against CSKA with 7/30. The hosts struggled big time to connect to the basket, shooting also 13/37 on 2-pointers.
CSKA kept pressing to turn the match into a rout in the fourth period, when they outplayed their opponents 15-32. Howard Sant-Roos finished with 11 points, Johannes Voigtmann with 10 points plus five rebounds and Kostas Koufos with 10 points.
Disappointment
Panathinaikos coach Rick Pitino mentioned the word “disappointed” five times in his opening statement during the post-game presser. Pitino had tweeted that he wanted his team to fight like the Spartans did at Thermopylae, but the Greek team underperformed in every possible manner.
“Obviously I think the organization is very disappointed. I think the fans are very disappointed, I think the coaches are very disappointed and I think the players are very disappointed with that type of performance,” Pitino said. “I can tell you from experience it doesn’t do any good to yell at the players or trash the players. Because we know the problems as coaches, now with seven games remaining and things looking bleak, we’ve got to find solutions. So complaining about the talent, the mismatches or the shooting, it’s not going to help. We’re 8 for 50 from wide-open threes over two games. We have one low-post player, Ian [Vougioukas], and he’s done a wonderful job finally getting into shape, so we give him a lot of credit. We get caught in a lot of defensive mismatches every game and we did tonight, and it cost us dearly. We don’t rebound really well, and that’s been a problem all year. The biggest disappointment I’ve had taking over the team compared to last year, is that last year the number one asset the team had was the fastbreak. This year we’ve gone from averaging 15 to 18 transition fastbreaks to 5 a game. That’s obviously because you give up offensive rebounds, you don’t play great defense, so you don’t get out in transition. And that was the strength of this basketball team last year. When we’ve got to rely on jump shots, that’s not a good sign for us.”