By Nikola Miloradovic / info@eurohoops.net
Nigel Hayes-Davis had little interest in celebrating after Panathinaikos survived a close call against Baskonia, delivering a blunt assessment of his team’s performance.
The forward contributed 18 points and seven rebounds in an 85-79 victory, sealed by late three-pointers from Sylvain Francisco and Guerschon Yabusele after Baskonia erased a seven-point deficit.
“There are a lot of players that make a lot of money, so we just made our shots. But we played horrible… We didn’t play up to the Panathinaikos standard,” Hayes-Davis said when asked what made the difference.
“Especially with the names on the back of the jerseys we have in our locker room, it was a very bad performance. We all know that, but it’s a long season, and we are lucky that we were able to win.”
Mathias Lessort led the Greens with 20 points and six rebounds, while Francisco finished with 10 points and 11 assists. For Hayes-Davis, however, the individual quality on the roster needs to translate into a more cohesive team performance.
“We need to rebound better, to have better continuity in offense. We have to trust the Panathinaikos offense. Everyone knows the names that we have in our locker room. We need to make sure we play basketball as a team and not try to solve everything by ourselves.”
He identified that balance as a major challenge moving forward, with the narrow victory offering a reminder of the work still ahead.
“That’s going to be our biggest challenge, and today we saw what it looks like. Very close call. We still won, but we need to clean that up, continue to get better and improve,” he added. “It’s a long season, so we’re not going to celebrate a win or dwell on a loss. Just going to show up to work tomorrow and try to get better.”
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