Zalgiris proves too powerful for Greek basketball champs
Lithuania’s Zalgiris Kaunas proved too strong for the Panathinaikos basketball club and beat the Greens in the final of the Alexander Gomelsky Cup to lift the trophy in the friendly tournament in Moscow last night. Panathinaikos lost 80-69, despite enjoying a three-point lead at halftime (41-38). The Greek club was clearly missing a big man on its front line, as Serb Nikola Pekovic once again did not feature in the game. On the positive side, coach Zeliko Obradovic watched Stratos Perperoglou and Costas Tsartsaris play an excellent game, particularly in defense, while scoring 12 and four points, respectively. On the negative side, though, new signing Drew Nicholas was a shadow of his usual self, missing many chances in the last minutes of the final. He had too many fouls early in the game and sat out the entire third period. The Lithuanians made the most of the errors by the Greeks, who were obviously very tired, and took the gap to double digits in the last couple of minutes when Panathinaikos seemed to have given up. Olympiakos coach Panayiotis Yiannakis was happy to see all his players train normally for the first time in this pre-season, as the team is preparing for its participation in a friendly tournament in Italy.
