Perfect season for Panathinaikos
Panathinaikos won the Greek basketball league title last night with an 89-76 victory over Olympiakos to cap off a perfect season in both domestic and European competition. For the first time in the Athens club’s history, Panathinaikos captured the Greek league, cup and European titles in the same season. Olympiakos became the first Greek team to achieve this triple triumph in 1997, when the Piraeus club’s sole Euroleague title up to then was supplemented by the Greek league and cup titles. The triple triumph was the second in Panathinaikos coach Zeljko Obradovic’s hugely successful career. He had won all three titles in one season with Partizan Belgrade back in the early 90s. Panathinaikos and Olympiakos went into last night’s encounter tied at two wins apiece in their best-of-five title series. As it turned out, the host prevailed in all five games of the series. Strict security measures were enforced last night amid concerns prompted by a fatal brawl earlier this season when a fan was killed on the sidelines of a women’s volleyball game involving the two clubs. Panathinaikos’s 17,000-capacity OAKA stadium was left half-empty to keep rival fans at a distance. As the home team, Panathinaikos was allotted the overwhelming majority of match tickets. Dimitris Papanikolaou, who was rarely fielded by Obradovic this season, helped the home team establish a five-point lead, 26-21, early in the second period. But Olympiakos fought back to take a four-point lead, 40-36, three minutes before the halftime break. The European champions responded with a 6-0 run for a 42-40 lead. Shooting guard Arvydas Macijauskas gave Olympiakos a 46-45 lead at halftime. If there was a turning point in the game, it was late in the third period when Olympiakos coach Pini Gershon was penalized with a technical foul for protesting in support of Alex Acker’s interception of a Dimitris Diamantidis layup. The ball made contact with the backboard and Panathinaikos was awarded the two points for a 65-57 lead. Ramounas Siskauskas was on target with one of his two free throws. As for the other, Batist gained an offensive rebound, was fouled and awarded two free throws, which he put away to give Panathinaikos a 68-57 lead. A stubborn Olympiakos managed to reduce the deficit to four points, 77-73, two minutes before time. But that was as close as the Piraeus team got. A 10-1 run gave Panathinaikos total command and the club’s first ever triple triumph.
