Road win for Greens, home loss for Reds
Panathinaikos and Olympiakos are back level on the Euroleague table, after Panathinaikos won at Villeurbanne on Thursday and Olympiakos suffered a home reverse to Valencia on Friday.
The Greens defeated Euroleague bottom team Villeurbanne in France with an 89-81 score, to snap their three-game losing streak.
The Athens team led for almost the entire game, by up to 16 points (41-25), but had to survive a late comeback effort by the hosts, to get this important win on the road.
For this seventh win in 14 games Panathinaikos was led by Marius Grigonis with 19 points and Kostas Sloukas with 18.
Olympiakos missed injured Alec Peters and went down at the Peace and Friendship Stadium to Valencia 63-56.
The Reds fell behind in the second quarter of the game having been uncharacteristically frustrated in offense. Valencia held on despite the Greek champions’ efforts to get back into the game, but their having 9 from 16 from the line would never bode well for their chances.
Thomas Walkup (13 points) and Kostas Papanikolaou (11 points) were the only ones in double figures for Olympiakos, that is also on a 7-7 record.
