Sloukas leads Reds to win, as Greens expect Kattash to save them
Olympiakos took an important step toward a playoff spot with its home win over Bayern Munich, while Panathinaikos is waiting for new coach Oded Kattash to help it recover after three losses in a row in the Euroleague.
The Reds had a must-win game at the Peace and Friendship Stadium against Bayern and managed to scrape through with an 84-82 result on Friday.
The German visitors may have advanced by nine (42-33) during the first half, that ended 46-44 in their favor, but Olympiakos improved its defense after the interval and opened a seven-point gap (77-70) to win the game by denying Bayern a decent shot in the final four seconds.
Kostas Sloukas was by far the best for the Greeks with 24 points and seven assists. Sasha Vezenkov was also instrumental with 13 points and six rebounds.
Olympiakos now has nine wins in 17 games, standing ninth among 18 teams.
Following its league loss at Lavrio on Sunday, Panathinaikos sacked coach Giorgos Vovoras on Monday, once again deciding to switch horses in the middle of the race. Its money now is on its former player Oded Kattash, the Israeli who will be making his debut on the Panathinaikos bench next week after ending his contract with Hapoel Jerusalem early.
Kattash is coming to a team that surrendered to visiting Zenit St Petersburg with an 89-77 score on Thursday, after falling as far behind as 22 points in the third period.
For the first three quarters of the game at the Olympic Sports Hall Panathinaikos was not a match for the Russians, and when it woke up in the last period it was too late.
On a poor night for its foreign players, Panathinaikos had Ioannis Papapetrou score and Dinos Mitoglou add another 13. It is now on a 5-12 record, standing second-bottom.
