Greens and Reds end their Euroleague losing streaks
Olympiakos scored a much-needed victory over Partizan Belgrade on Thursday, to recover from two consecutive losses in the Euroleague, while Panathinaikos notched up its first home win of the season, as it came from behind to defeat Baskonia on Friday.
Olympiakos produced a spectacular defensive effort in the second half against Partizan to win comfortably 87-58 at the Peace and Friendship Stadium.
The Reds led by seven at half-time (45-38), but conceded just 20 in the second half, and just four in the final quarter, to stroll to a precious as well as essential home win that has taken their record to 5-2.
The Piraeus team had six players in double figures, led by Kostas Sloukas (17 points, eight assists), Sasha Vezenkov (15 points, seven rebounds) and Giannoulis Larentzakis (14 points).
Panathinaikos recorded only its second win in seven games, but the 98-83 result against Baskonia in the most convincing home performance to date (even better than the narrow loss to Real Madrid) offered its fans some hope for recovery.
The Basques were the better team in the first half, leading for almost the entire 20 minutes except for the end of the first quarter.
Yet after trailing at half-time by five (43-38), Panathinaikos started having an impact on the Baskonia defense (29 points in the third period) led by Nate Wolters’ organizational craft.
Eventually it was an easy win for the improved Greens, that had Derrick Williams and Dwayne Bacon score 16 points each.
