By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
With the score 70 – 70 at OAKA between Panathinaikos and Unics Kazan and 35 seconds to play, Lorenzo Brown took it on him to hit the go-ahead bucket. He misfired but his teammate Tonye Jekiri tipped the ball in his direction for another possession. This time Brown hit his jumper which was the game-winner that handed Unics a 72 – 74 victory on the road over the Greens.
Brown finished with 13 points and eight rebounds while Isaiah Canaan had 15 points plus five assists and Andrey Vorontsevich scored 15 as well for Unics.
““Just a bunch of energy from both teams who were out here playing hard,” Brown said. “All of our players played consistently tonight. So we earned it tonight for sure.”
In his return to OAKA as an opponent, Mario Hezonja was met with booing by the crowd nearly every time he touched the ball. He was a non-factor for most of the game until the last five minutes when he scored a 3-pointer and then a pair of free throws for the 70 – 72.
Panathinaikos had 18 seconds after a timeout to either tie the score or go for the win after Brown’s go-ahead basket. Daryl Macon gave the ball to Ioannis Papapetrou who took an awkward 3-point attempt that went off target and the Greek side suffered its third straight loss in EuroLeague.
“Unfortunately this is a bad result for us – the way it came,” Panathinaikos coach Dimitris Priftis said. “We fought and tried according to our quality and condition. Definitely we handled the last possession in a silly way. We had a chance to find a better shot. It is what it is and we have to proceed. Not much to say.”
“The plan was different. The plan was for the ball to go to Macon but this didn’t happen,” Priftis added on this last offense. His team dropped to 2-7.
George Papagiannis had 14 points and a EuroLeague club record 17 rebounds. Daryl Macon added 14 points of his own while Papapetrou finished with 10 points on 2-11 3-pointers.
It all came down to one basket
And to which of the two teams would make it, as Unics coach Velimir Perasovic admitted.
“I am very happy because it’s always very difficult to win in OAKA,” Perasovic. “We know that after two losses for Panathinaikos that they were nervous and a victory would have been very important. Like the last games, we started very bad. But finally we found a way to stop their creation and their outside players. In the end, both teams could have won the game. We had more luck that our shot went in and their shot didn’t. And the victory went to us.”