Greens go down at Lietuvos Rytas in overtime
Panathinaikos suffered its second loss within four days, and its first in the Euroleague, going down 84-83 in overtime at Lietuvos Rytas on Thursday in its opening game for the continent’s top club competition.
The Greens have only themselves to blame for their defeat as their poor defending, especially in the first half, and the fact that they had not put the league loss to Olympiakos behind them cost them dearly in the match played at Vilnius in Lithuania.
There was little separating the two sides throughout the game, as they were hand-in-hand from the start to the end of regulation time: It was 25-25 after the first period, 42-42 at half-time and the 40 minutes ended with the score at 74-74, after Panathinaikos captain Dimitris Diamantidis scored a three-pointer in the Greens’ last attack to force overtime.
The Greeks led 83-82 with just 22 second left after a slam dunk by James Gist, but their sloppy defense in Lietuvos Rytas’s last attack allowed Renaldas Seibutis to score, while the last-ditch efforts by Roko Ukic and Antonis Fotsis went astray.
It was actually a Lithuanian, Jonas Maciulis, who was the top scorer for Panathinaikos on the night with 13 points.
On Friday Olympiakos will face Unicaja Malaga at home.
In the Eurocup this week PAOK beat Buducnost of Montenegro 85-84 in Thessaloniki and Panionios downed Radnicki Kragujevac of Serbia 77-72 in Athens.
