Βy Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Milan got its third straight win and can hope to finish the season strong, while Panathinaikos with coach Christos Serelis making his EuroLeague debut just a couple of days after his hiring didn’t expect much.
That’s why the end result, a close 78-76 win for the Italians leave everyone happy.
Shabazz Napier and Brandon Davies with 16 points each were the top scorers of Milan, Napier also added five assists, and Stefano Tonut scored 11 points.
Αs Milan coach Ettore Messina said: “We need to keep working and recover our injured players. Today, we lost Gigi Datome two minutes into the game. We know it’s a grind but the team showed character and I’m very happy.”
On the other side, Derrick Williams scored 21 points for Panathinaikos, Dwayne Bacon added 14 and Paris Lee had 13, while George Papagiannis also scored in double digits with 10 points.
The bottom line for coach Serelis was simple: “We fought until the end. We told the players that this has to be the mentality, but we have to sort out our turnovers and make fewer mistakes to win games in Europe.”
With Panathinaikos having just 10 players available and Milan still missing Kevin Pangos and Shavon Shields among others, the end result was a very peculiar game. Both opponents have only mathematical chances for the playoffs and realistically no way to sneak into them, so it was all about pride.
The end result was a competitive game with the hosts having a slight edge, entering the last period leading by four (64-60) and then by seven (71-64).
Panathinaikos trimmed the lead to two (70-68) and eventually tied the game at 76 with one minute left after a big three by Paris Lee.
Both Napier and Dwayne Bacon couldn’t score after that and just 11 seconds before the final buzzer Nicolo Melli went to the foul line and gave a two-point lead to the hosts (78-76). Bacon had one last chance to send the game to overtime but missed the last shot of the game.
Brandon Davies admitted: “It came down to the little things. We wanted the ball a little bit more. We had to play a lot of one-on-one defense, and I’ve got to give the guys a lot of credit for stepping up and playing good defense. They beat us at their place so we wanted to make sure we got them here. Our fans were a big part of that. They’ve been supporting us through these ups and downs, so it was good to get that win for them.”
Panathinaikos dropped to 8-17 after this result, while Milan has a 9-15 record, having played one game less. Both teams remain in the last four spots of the standings.