The final score, however, should not κοι put the European Champions to sleep (let's not forget last year's Olympic's loss to Siena), as they need three wins to qualify for F4 and the differences play absolutely no role.
Sophocles Schortsanitis was the face of the game in the first minutes and that was because he was the protagonist in both rackets. In Maccabi's attack, the Greek center took the ball and distributed it correctly on the weak side (when help came from the Panathinaikos defense), but in the defense it was the weak link, against Maric and Batist.
As a result, the greens got a small difference of five points relatively quickly (12-7, 5'30 "), but they lost immediately thanks to Devin Smith. The American, with consecutive personal points, immediately covered the handicap for the 16-16 of 7'30 ".
At that point Saronas Yassikevitsios appeared and immediately the balances changed: with the Lithuanian sharing, Diamantidis, Kalathis and Batist scoring and the home defense making a ίτ tile to the Israelis, the greens ran an impressive 22-0 !) from 8 ′ to 13 ′ and so they were ahead with 40-18!
The players of David Blatt were left without a score for 5'15 ", while at the same time in the defense they chose to leave the shots on the perimeter, something they paid very dearly, since the European Champions είχαν grabbed fire and shot without mercy (5/7 three points in 15 ′)!
The halftime ended with Panathinaikos at +21 (55-34) and a look at the statistics was enough to understand why: the hosts had 15/20 two points, 6/11 three points, 14 rebounds, 9 steals and 16 (! ) assists, while the guests 10/20 two points, 12 rebounds, 13 (!) errors and only 5 assists, as a result of the excellent defense of the greens.
Anyone waiting for a reaction from the Israelis in the second half… should wait for the next games of both teams. Panathinaikos not only entered the third period gassed, but with 3/3 three-pointers in one hundred seconds, shot the difference to 30 (!) Points (64-34 in 21'40 "). At 26'30 ”the difference reached +34 (73-39), since Maccabi… did not exist indoors at the Olympic facilities! The joke of the European Champion in last year's finalists had no end, with Blatt from one point and then staring in amazement at what was unfolding on the floor, walking up and down in front of his bench.
With the case of victory ending very early, in the last period, the two coaches began to look at the next games of the series, after a good victory with 20 points for Panathinaikos, but essentially did not secure him anything more than 1- 0. The final 93-73 certainly looks and is impressive, but still in everyone's mind is fresh θημα the suffering of Olympiacos with Siena last year.
Source: Sport.gr