Redemption for Panathinaikos in Milan
Panathinaikos redeemed itself from a very poor showing at Villeubanne on Tuesday through a stellar second half at Armani Milano on Thursday for its second road win this season in the Euroleague. Also on Thursday, Olympiakos was not a match for CSKA in Moscow.
The Greens got trounced by Villeurbanne on Tuesday, going down 97-73 in France on Tuesday. At no point during the game in Lyon did the Greens rival the hosts, in a match postponed from the third round of games.
Giorgos Papagiannis (14 points) and Dinos Mitoglou (12 points) were the only players to offer a decent performance on the night.
On Thursday, Panathinaikos had a first half similar to its game in France, allowing Armani to lead 42-30 after the second quarter. Then in the second half the Greens woke up and produced a game rarely shown this year to close the gap through their defense.
The Greek champion turned a 75-70 deficit to its head with a 10-2 partial score in the last couple of minutes to win 80-77, its fourth victory in 11 games.
Leading the Greens to this character-building triumph was Nemanja Nedovic with 16 points, along with Mitoglou and Ioannis Papapetrou with 14 each.
A few hours earlier leader CSKA strangled Olympiakos with its defense in Moscow to win 80-61.
After an early 17-9 lead, the Greeks were unable to match their hosts' scoring and predictably fell behind, scoring just 10 points in the second quarter and just one in the third.
The Reds, who are now on a 5-5 record, had Giorgos Printezis and Hassan Martin score 10 points apiece.
