Home sweet home, for Greens and Reds
Home advantage told for Olympiakos and Panathinaikos this week in the Euroleague, with the Reds beating Anadolu Efes and the Greens outscoring Baskonia.
Olympiakos was a class above Efes on Thursday and deserved its 18-point triumph (75-57) at home in front of a capacity crowd at the Peace and Friendship Stadium.
Thanks to its deep roster, the Greek champion had many solutions to the problems Efes try to pose to it, and kept increasing its distance from its Turkish visitor as the game went on.
The wide variety of scorers as well as the spread of the team’s 39 rebounds on the night gave coach Giorgos Bartzokas plenty of reasons to smile at the end. His team is now on a 3-2 record.
He saw Nigel Williams-Goss and Kostas Papanikolaou score 14 points, each, with Alec Peters adding another 12.
Panathinaikos notched up its second win in five games, defeating Baskonia 95-81 on Friday at the Olympic Sports Hall.
The Greens were always on top in a game that was tight for the first three quarters, but was decided in the last 10 minutes: Panathinaikos stepped up a gear for a 25-15 partial score that sealed its victory – a much needed one for the hosts.
Mathias Lesort and Dinos Mitoglou were outstanding, with 23 points each for Panathinaikos.
The question now is how Greek teams will fare outside Greece…
