By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Panathinaikos Aktor led from almost start to finish and was up by double figures from nearly all of the final quarter en route to defeating Crvena Zvezda 82 – 65 at home and registering its fourth straight EuroLeague win.
Dinos Mitoglou (15 points, five rebounds), Jerian Grant (14 points), Mathias Lessort (13 points), and Kostas Sloukas (nine points, seven assists) led this well-balanced performance by Panathinaikos. Their team controlled most aspects of the game after the first five minutes to ultimately get a comfortable win thanks mostly to a powerful defensive display.
“It feels amazing,” Mitoglou said on Panathinaikos’ four-game winning streak.
“I trust myself. I go in and give everything to the team. A lot of times it’s about the rhythm of the game. Zvezda played tight in the beginning. After we analyzed this, we found some spacing and we all scored, including myself.”
Milos scoreless
Joel Bolomboy had 15 points plus five rebounds and Nemanja Nedovic dropped 15 points for a Zvezda team that was held to 65 points after pouring 98 last week in a victory over Maccabi Tel Aviv. Milos Teodosic last week’s MVP, in particular, was scoreless for the first time this season while his team overall shot 4-25 from the perimeter.
“We struggled a lot offensively,” Zvezda coach Giannis Sfairopoulos admitted. “We didn’t find the solution we needed to attack. We didn’t find easy baskets and open shots, especially in the second half. We also gave up some easy points that made a difference and was very hard to come back.”
Panathinaikos wasn’t much better from the 3-point line (5-22) but found plenty of solutions inside the paint while getting a combined number of 25 points off turnovers and offensive rebounds. The Greens closed halftime up 38 – 31 and established an almost permanent double-digit lead after the middle of the third period, going ahead even 81 – 63 down the stretch.
“The guys showed great character, great defense as well,” Panathinaikos coach Ergin Ataman said. “It’s a big victory that everyone enjoyed it I think. The fans and the players who played the game. Every day we improve our game. We are OK offensively, we share the ball very well and we have very good talent. But now we work on team defense also. Panagiotis Kalaitzakis did great job on Teodosic.”