Panathinaikos rout KK Zagreb 81-62: Euroleague Basketball Recap
On Wednesday, October 26, at the Zagreb Arena, the reigning Euroleague champions Panathinaikos strutted to an 81-62 win over Croatian club KK Zagreb thanks to their defensive prowess. It was Panathinaikos’ second straight victory
in Group B and second consecutive loss for Zagreb.
Romain Sato led the winners with 13 points and seven rebounds. Nick Calathes and Steven Smith were not too bad either as they added 12 points apiece. Mike Batiste chipped in 10 points while the reigning Euroleague MVP Dimitris
Diamantidis dished out a game-best eight assists in the victory.
"I did not expect it to be this easy. However, we made the game easy because we work hard. When coach gives us a game plan to execute, we try to focus as much as we can to play serious. That has always been the recipe for success
of Panathinaikos,” forward Batiste said after the game.
Zagreb’s Sean May came up huge in this game, scoring his Euroleague career high 23 points on 7 for 8 shooting from free throw line and also clutched nine rebounds, but it simply was not enough. Damir Mulaomerovic added 15 points
on a perfect 3 for 3 shooting from three-point range. Zagreb committed 21 turnovers while the visiting team finished with just 13.
Panathinaikos did a good job of finding open spaces and making the right passes in the first quarter as they carried a ten-point lead, 24-14. The Greens were impressive again in the second quarter and outscored Zagreb 21-8, scoring
eight consecutive points in the last three minutes of the first half. They their lead to 23 points lead, 45-22, at halftime and then opened the third quarter on a 7-0 run to make it 52-22, destroying any hopes, Zagreb had of mounting a comeback.
By the time, the third quarter ended, the Greeks were leading the game at 61-33.
Zagreb scored the first ten points of the fourth quarter to slash the deficit to 61-43 deficit, but the gulf that the Greens had created was a bit too much to overcome. The game finally ended on 81-62 ensuring that the defending
champions remained unbeaten.
Tags: