By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Panathinaikos Athens had a productive first half and let some intense defense do the talking to rout Olimpia Milano 79 – 62 at home and improve to 15-9. Thanks to this win, the Greens remain in the Top 4 zone in the standings while their opponents, now 10 – 14, are falling behind in the Play-In race.
Marius Grigonis had 15 points for Panathinaikos. Mathias Lessort added 12 points plus seven rebounds and Juancho Hernangomez also scored 12.
He and Grigonis dropped 10 of their points in the first half to push the hosts towards taking a 44 – 28 advantage behind a beautiful performance on both ends.
“Obviously defense,” Grigonis said on what gave Panathinaikos the win. “Our defense was really good. I believe we struggled a lot on offense, it looked ugly. But with this defense, you can win this kind of games.”
Shabazz Napier had 16 points and Nikola Mirotic scored 11 in his EuroLeague return to action after two months. Their team shot the ball poorly (4-21 3-pointers) and couldn’t recover after the break, being always behind by double figures.
Down the stretch, Panathinaikos, pushed also by Jerian Grant’s nine assists (plus eight points) further imposed its dominance to even go ahead 74 – 50. Panathinaikos coach Ergin Ataman wasn’t completely satisfied though.
“We need to play much better,” Ataman said. “Tonight we did a great job defensively in our home court with that great atmosphere. But on offense, we need to play much better. Tonight, our best scorer had three baskets on 16 shots. We made a lot of mistakes offensively. It won’t be easy to win with this offense. We need to pay more attention to offense. To win on the road we must pay muc better, especially on offense.”
“Embarrassing”
Milano coach Ettore Messina didn’t mince words regarding his team’s poor performance. “We didn’t give any opposition. Our lack of competitiveness was honestly embarrassing,” the veteran coach said. “And I apologize. First of all to our owner and then to whoever supports us. We started missing layups, we started missing defensive coverages. And more importantly, we didn’t compete with Lessort under the rim and Hernangomez on the perimeter.”
“Jerian Grant had a fantastic game in my opinion in the way he conducted the team,” Messina said on his former Milano player. “We reacted to the difficulties in a very weak way. We’ll talk and we’ll try to bounce back.”