By Aris Barkas
Panathinaikos and Olympiacos are just one step away from the Greek League play offs finals. The “eternal rivals” beat Kolossos (102-71) and Panionios (90-65) in a day with no surprises and they are leading 2-0 their respective series.
In OAKA coach Obradovic used Pat Calathes, the older brother of Nick, and he did alright, scoring 12 points against his previous team. In SEF Olympiacos‘ captain Vasilis Spanoulis delivered once again, scoring 21 points with 3/3 three pointers.
The story was completely different in Spain, for the third Euroleague Final Four team that played on Thursday. Barcelona prevailed over Caja Laboral 97-89 after a very hard battle for the regular season of Liga Endesa. The score was 89-87 in favor of Barca just two minutes before the end, but the home team finished the game with a 8-2 run.
Juan Carlos Navarro with 31 points was great with Erazem Lorbek adding 21 points and Marcelinio Huertas 17 against his old team. For Caja Laboral two former NBA players, Maciej Lampe from Poland and Andres Nocioni from Argentina, had 27 points and 15 points respectively. Barcelona is first in the standings (26-5) and Caja Laboral third (21-10).
Barcelona – Caja Laboral 97-89
BARCELONA: Sada, Huertas 17, Navarro 31, Ingles, Eidson 2, Mickael 2, Lorbek 21, Vazquez 4, Ndong 14, Rabaseda, Wallace 6
CAJA LABORAL: Ribas 5, Heurtel 8, Oleson 8, N. Bjelica 3, Nocioni 15, M. Bjelica 8, Lampe 31, Teletovic 11, Martinez, Calbarro
Panathinaikos – Kolossos 102-71
PANATHINAIKOS: Maric 16, Perperoglou 8, Logan 9, Sato 8, P. Calathes 12, Tsartsaris, Diamantidis 10, Vougioukas 6, N. Calathes 4, Smith 11, Kaimakoglou 4, Jasikevicius 14 (7 as.)
KOLOSSOS: Liakopoulos, Hatten 17, Kalaitzis 2, Panos 4, Georgalis 6, Asimakopoulos 5, Boykin 2, Harissis 13, Tsamis 13, Hopson 9
Olympiacos – Panionios 90-65
OLYMPIACOS: Hines 9, Law 3, Antic 8, Spanoulis 21 (3/3 3p.), Vasilopoulos 4, Dorsey 4 (8 r.), Keselj 8, Gecevicius 10, Glyniadakis 7, Printezis 7, Mantzaris 3, Sloukas 6
PANIONIOS: Xanthopoulos 3, Keys 13, Athanasoulas 4, Diebler 10 (5 as.), Kavadas 1, Ioannou 7, Sarikopoulos 8, Nadjfeji 13, Paragios 3, Barlos 3