By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Panathinaikos survived a late comeback from down 15 by Olympiacos Piraeus before taking an 85 – 80 win to remain undefeated in the 2023-24 Greek League, now at 15 – 0. The Reds, who also lost center Nikola Milutinov to injury early in the third period, dropped to 13-2.
Olympiacos trailed 76 – 61 with 6:30 remaining when Panathinaikos seemed to be in full control despite guard Kostas Sloukas exiting the game late in the first half with adductor problems. The visiting side made a 4 – 19 run down the stretch to approach 80 – 79 with 27 seconds remaining.
Jerian Grant went 1-2 from the line while, on the other end, Nigel Williams-Goss did the same. After two free throws by Marius Grigonis, Olympiacos had nine seconds to possibly send the game to overtime but Panagiotis Kalaitzakis stole the ball after a bad inbounds pass by Thomas Walkup and made two free throws to secure the hosts’ win.
Grant led Panathinaikos with 19 points plus five assists while Marius Grigonis had 18 points and Kendrick Nunn scored 15 out of his 16 points in the first half. Dinos Mitoglou finished with 13 points plus nine rebounds.
From Olympiacos, which was minus center Moustapha Fall, Filip Petrusev produced 18 points and six rebounds before exiting with five fouls with eight minutes to play, in his top performance since he joined the team in November. Williams-Goss had 16 points plus seven assists and Alec Peters dropped 14 points.
Sloukas and Milutinov out of action
Both Kostas Sloukas and Nikola Milutinov will miss the upcoming EuroLeague games of their teams. Panathinaikos will travel to Belgrade to face Maccabi and Sloukas will not be able to follow his teammates.
Things are even worse for Milutinov, who stepped on the foot of his teammate Kostas Papanikolaou and had to be carried away from the court.
In the rest of the games for Round 15 of the Greek league, the results are the following:
AEK Betsson – Aris Midea 91-93
Promitheas Patras – Peristeri bwin 75-81
PAOK mateco – Lavrio MEGABOLT 66-65
Kollosos H HOTELS COLLECTION – Apollon Patras Carna 88-60
Karditsa Iaponiki – Marousi 87-84
Standings: Panathinaikos 15-0, Olympiacos 13-2, Peristeri 9-6, Promitheas 9-6…