Greens and Reds win in Italy and Serbia

Panathinaikos and Olympiakos secured precious road wins in Italy and Serbia respectively and have boosted their chances for the optimum finish to the regular season of the Euroleague, with two rounds of games left to play.

On Thursday Olympiakos came from behind to defeat Partizan in Belgrade with a 74-69 score.

By the 27th minute, when Partizan led by 14 (52-38), there was no sign of an Olympiakos fightback, but 12 unanswered points at the start of the last quarter pointed to an impressive result for the Reds: With a partial 28-10 in the final period of the game they won by five and closed in on a top-six finish.

Olympiakos, that is on a 20-12 record, had Nigel Williams-Goss score 17 points, making up for the poor night of Alec Peters, while Kostas Papanikolaou added another 13.

Then on Friday Panathinaikos overcame its last major hurdle toward securing the second spot in the regular season through its last-gasp victory at Virtus Bologna with an 81-79 score.

The Greens led by up to 17 points (36-19), but Virtus ate into that lead to go level toward the end and even edge ahead (79-76), before Marius Grigonis scored three from a goal-foul effort and Kendrick Nunn added a buzzer beating basket at the very end to give the win to the Greeks.

Panathinaikos has advanced to a 21-11 record, paced by Kostas Sloukas with 20 points and Nunn with 16.