Greeks to face Turkish opposition in Euroleague play-offs
Olympiakos will play Anadolu Efes and Panathinaikos will face off with Fenerbahce as the two Greek teams have secured home advantage for the Euroleague play-offs and will try to make it count in their quarterfinal best-of-five clashes with their Turkish opponents.
Olympiakos lost 90-86 at holder CSKA Moscow on Friday in a game that would change nothing to its position. However the Greek champion fought tooth and nail in Moscow and very nearly upset the Russians, who finished second, one place above the Piraeus team.
Ioannis Papapetrou and Vassilis Spanoulis scored 16 points each for Olympiakos that showed it would be capable of beating anyone even away from home.
Panathinaikos needed victory at Maccabi Tel Aviv on Thursday to secure the fourth spot and won 81-61 thanks to an impressive third quarter when it scored a partial 31-12 score to overturn its 42-32 half-time deficit.
It had Mike James score 17 points and Chris Singleton add another 13 points.
The Greens will now have to contend with facing their former coach of 13 years, Zeljko Obradovic, currently at the helm of Fenerbahce.
The play-offs, that will decide which teams will enter the Final Four, begin on April 18.
