By Eurohoops Team / info@eurohoops.net
After losing to Olympiacos Piraeus last week in the Greek Clasico, Panathinaikos OPAP Athens bounced back with a 77-67 win over FC Bayern Munich and improved to 8-9 on the year. Bayern was trailing throughout 40 minutes and could not find ways to challenge the Greek side, despite Derrick Williams’ impressive game.
The story of the night, however, was Ioannis Papapetrou’s career game and Panathinaikos‘ defense. The 24-year old forward had his best performance in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague and with plays on both ends of the court was Panathinaikos best player. Since the first quarter, Panathinaikos built an early double-digit lead (22-11). thanks to his seven points and four rebounds. From that point, Rick Pitino’s team even went up by 15 (26-11) as Nick Calathes was facilitating the offense with his 11 assists.
On the other hand, all night long, Derrick Williams tried to will his team back to the game, with tough lay-ups and three-point shots, but every time Bayern cut the deficit to single-digits, Panathinaikos responded perfectly either with Calathes or Papapetrou. Eventually, the ‘Greens’ came out on top.
Papapetrou flirted with a double-double, as he finished with a career-high 18 points and eight rebounds. Calathes added a double-double of 14 points and 11 assists, while James Gist finished the game with 13 points. For the visitors, Williams ended the contest with 21 points.
After the final buzzer, Panathinaikos head coach commented on the team’s conditioning: “We did a good job on Williams, we did a good job defensively. Our conditioning is a little suspect. It’s suspect because we are two players down. Like, for instance, Papapetrou had to play almost the whole game at the three spot. If I had to put a gauge on one thing I’d like to see better, it’s our conditioning. Because I’m a running coach, I’m a pressure coach. And we were used to switching all the time and taking the easy way out. So from this point on, we’ll work a little more on conditioning, but we’re very pleased with the victory.”
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