Greeks beat Barcelona and Bayern – in basketball
Panathinaikos and Olympakos recorded much-needed Euroleague wins to leave behind them previous bad performances, as they defeated Barcelona and Bayern Munich respectively ahead of another pair of games on Thursday and Friday.
The Reds saw off Bayern 72-62 in Germany on Tuesday for their fourth win in eight games, putting an end to a three-match losing streak.
They benefitted from the full return to form by Janis Strelnieks and a solid game by Zach LeDay who recorded 12 points and 12 rebounds.
Olympiakos led for most of the encounter, pleasing its hundreds of fans at the stands in Munich. It fended off the resistance of the German team that could not sustain its comebacks in the face of a strong Greek defense.
Then on Wednesday Panathinaikos outplayed Barcelona to win 76-70 in Athens and take its score to 5-3.
The Greens played a great defensive game in the first half, after which they led 34-25, and braved the Catalan counterattack in the second thanks to their unexpectedly strong frontline of Stephane Lasme and Dinos Mitoglou.
DeShawn Thomas scored 14 points to make up for a quiet night for Nick Calathes, Nikos Pappas and James Gist.
In the Basketball Champions League AEK won 71-64 at Antwerp, Promitheas Patras lost 95-85 at home to Bologna and PAOK triumphed 66-65 at Tenerife.
