By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
It seems that Dejan Radonjic finally put the pieces together, as Panathinaikos Athens cruised past LDLC ASVEL with a 77-58 victory in Round 10 of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague.
It was the second win in a row for the team from OAKA, as they improved to a 4-6 score, while the French champions suffered their fourth straight loss, and fell to 3-7.
Dwayne Bacon shined in a blow-out triumph with an EuroLeague career-high 25 points and a PIR of 26.
“We were aggressive, as we knew they would be. Big double week, it was something that we needed, and everybody contributed. When I wasn’t hitting my shots, everybody else was. Tonight I was hitting my shots, some guys were off – that’s why they call it a team for,” Bacon said after a great performance.
“Happy we can come out of the double week with a win. We got a long way to go, so we gotta keep taking it a day at a time”.
Mateusz Ponitka followed with an all-around performance and ended the match with 10 points, seven assists, and five rebounds for a PIR of 23.
In one of the worst offensive executions of the season for ASVEL, Yves Pons scored 11 points, while the experienced big man Alex Tyus had a near-double-double with 10 points and nine rebounds.
After a tough first quarter, where both teams struggled to score, Panathinaikos took off with a 12-2 run midway in the second period, for a 39-24 lead at halftime.
“Quite good 30 minutes for us. We played on both ends well, it was 30 minutes with a lot of energy defensively, and a lot of good things in offense. We had precision, and we were smart, with only six turnovers, and the last 10 minutes were the total opposite with eight turnovers. It was not serious, and it was not the way to play for this club. Especially on this level. We have to be serious all 40 minutes“, Radonjic said.
The Greens continued crushing their opponents after the break, opened the third period with a 13-2 run, and it was pretty clear that there was no turning back for ASVEL, as they scored only 37 points in 30 minutes.
T. J. Parker’s team tried to soften the blow in the last period and had the best-scoring quarter in the game (21), but that was it.
“We started the game pretty well defensively. After that we lacked aggressiveness, offensively we could to a much better job. We gotta be more aggressive and make some shots, we didn’t make some wide-open ones. Overall, Panathinaikos played a better game“, Parker said after the game.