Marcelinho Huertas leads FC Barcelona Regal to third spot in Euroleague; Panathinaikos go down fighting 74-69
Marcelinho Huertas erupted with 21 points, including 19 in the first half, as FC Barcelona Regal clinched the third place in 2012 Turkish Airlines Euroleague by defeating the outgoing champions Panathinaikos 74-69.
"We had very low shooting percentages against Olympiacos and got back to normal tonight. It is not that we shot extraordinarily well, but we have a more fluid offense and played with more confidence. I believe that the team has
bounced back and all the doubts we had in the semifinals disappeared. We were tougher and more intense on defense and communicated with each other really well. We played much better than the other day and many things we did better paid off on the court. We
have to think of our Spanish League playoffs opener on Thursday."
Joe Ingles chipped in with 13 points while C.J. Wallace ended the night with 12 and 2 swats for Blaugrana, who rounded off the season with a 19-2 record and were much the hot favourites going into the Final Four.
The Greeks were paced by Dimitris Diamantidis with 17 points. Last season’s MVP had a better shooting night this time around, going 3-for-4 as compared to a paltry 2-for-8 against CSKA Moscow in the semifinals. Aleks Maric posted
a double-double with 13 points and 11 rebounds while David Logan had 11.
Bothe teams gutted it out in the first quarter, which ended with Barca just holding onto a one-point advantage at 21-20. The Spaniard started to slip away in the second frame. They went ahead by 7 early and after the Greens pulled
within 29-32, they raced off to 9-2 run to make it 31-38. Barcelona continued to dominate and finished the first half with a 48-37 lead.
The Greeks side upped the ante in the third quarter and choked Barca, who failed to make a field goal for more than 6 minutes. The stupendous Greens defense however failed to infuse spark in the lacklustre offense as Panathinaikos
slowly chipped away at the lead. They made it 43-49 mid way through the period and entered the fourth trailing by 52-58.
Barca started the last frame with five quick points to make it 52-63, but back to back three’s from Kostas Kaimakoglou and Diamantidis kept the Greens within striking range. Panathinaikos kept on exerting pressure on the Barca
offense, but the lack of scoring by their own player hampered them every time and that eventually led to their downfall.
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