Promitheas mighty close to upsetting Olympiakos away

Panathinaikos and Olympiakos have taken a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five Basket League semifinals beating PAOK and Promitheas respectively twice at home within 48 hours, but Olympiakos’s performance in Game 2 caused significant concerns among its fans.

The Greens had no problems against PAOK on Thursday and Saturday in Athens, winning 92-79 in Game 1 and 84-67 in Game 2 and need just one win in the three remaining games to clinch a spot in the finals and defend their title.

The Reds, on the other hand followed up their comfortable 108-71 victory in Game 1 on Thursday with a last-gasp 89-88 win over Promitheas Patras on Saturday.

Olympiakos blew a 20-point lead to trail Promitheas by two with just seconds left on the clock and was spared the blushes of a home loss thanks to a Costas Papanikolaou triple and a good defense in the end. This was reminiscent of Game 1 against Kymi at home, too, in the previous round.

Games 3 of the series will take place on Tuesday at the PAOK Sports Arena in Thessaloniki and the Tofalos Municipal Indoor Arena in Patra.

Peristeri and Holargos, both clubs from the capital, are the two teams that have earned their promotion to the top flight from the A2 division to replace Korivos Amaliadas and Trikala BC.

Peristeri eased into the division’s title to gain automatic promotion, while Holargos earned its first ever spot in the top division after it won the play-offs involving the teams to finish from the second to the fifth spot.

Consequently next season half of the 14 A1 teams will be from Attica.