By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Olympiacos Piraeus came back from 10 points down against Panathinaikos Athens and ultimately dominated the overtime to leave OAKA with an 88 – 78 win in one of the best EuroLeague clashes between the Greek powerhouses that we’ve ever witnessed.
After a nerve-racking battle with lots of ups and downs for both teams, the game was decided in the extra period following a tying layup by Alec Peters and Kostas Sloukas missing the shot to win the match at the fourth-quarter buzzer. The Reds opened the overtime with a 0-12 run to grab their sixth straight EuroLeague victory over Panathinaikos and extend their overall record against their archrival to an impressive 18 – 1.
Peters finished with 17 points, 10 rebounds, four steals and four assists in his highest-scoring game with the Olympiacos jersey in EuroLeague, delivering in his upgraded role as a starter this season. “It’s coming in the preseason I felt pretty good,” the American forward said. “Our team is so resilient. That end of the game there for us to come down the stretch and hit big shots, withstand their runs, rebound the ball. We had to be tough, myself included. It was a great way to end the game.”
Thomas Walkup produced 17 points plus five assists. Nigel Williams-Goss scored five out of his 16 points in overtime and Nikola Milutinov put up 15 points, seven rebounds and a huge block on Sloukas in overtime, covering also for the absence of injured Moustapha Fall. Isaiah Canaan contributed 14 points on 4-6 triples, hitting key buckets throughout the game.
Sloukas led Panathinaikos with 20 points but also committed seven turnovers for three assists, while spending the last 2:19 of overtime at the bench after Olympiacos went up 81 – 74. The Greek guard had 13 points in the first half to push the Greens towards grabbing a 43 – 36 lead after a superb second quarter (21-13). Marius Grigonis added 17 points and Mathias Lessort posted 10 points plus 10 rebounds but made a key turnover with 20 seconds remaining with a bad pass.
In his first EuroLeague game ever, Juancho Hernangomez registered 13 points and 10 rebounds for a team-high 25 PIR for Panathinaikos.
Hernangomez put Panathinaikos up 46 – 36 early in the third period and his team repelled an Olympiacos comeback attempt to close the quarter ahead 59 – 52. The visiting side responded with a 0 – 11 run and the two teams traded blows and leads until overtime.
Apart from Fall, Olympiacos was without Ignas Brazdeikis. Panathinaikos was missing Dinos Mitoglou and Ioannis Papapetrou.
“If you ask me how I feel, put yourselves in my situation,” Panathinaikos coach Ergin Ataman said. “To lose your first home court game, derby in overtime. I’m very tired of course. But starting with positive things, I think the new team showed capacity. For three quarters we played excellent basketball against one of the best and most experienced team in EuroLeague. In the fourth quarter, they improved their aggressiveness. We stopped playing and we especially made a lot of turnovers. We didn’t respond to their aggressiveness.”
“Then in overtime, we didn’t play, we just stopped playing. I think we got a lot of upsetting situations and we lost,” he added.
A strong reaction for a EuroLeague road win
Olympiacos coach Giorgos Bartzokas commended his players for both the defensive intensity they put on the floor and making the right choices on the offensive end, especially down the stretch.
“I think we controlled the game in the fourth quarter,” said Bartzokas. “We played really good defense there, we had patience and we found a lot of open looks. Milutinov was a little bit tired, we didn’t have Moustapha to replace him and give him some time at the bench. We gave them open looks that we shouldn’t had at the end. We had the last offense with Thomas to win the game in regulation but in the overtime we dominated and we played great defense. Shared the ball, finding a lot of good selections that we took and we won.”
We proved this a lot of times,” he added. “We are a team. We found a way to play together finally. To avoid the mistakes we made in the second quarter especially. And finally we won”