PAO-Olympiacos: the Greek derby of Gods

 OAKA Arena hosted Friday evening the Greek derby between the eternal rivals Panathinaikos and Olympiakos. Before the game, both teams had the same record in Euroleague (3-2) and they were undefeated in the Greek League.

In front of more than 18000 fanatic fans, coach Xavi Pascual decided to start without his best scorer, Keith Langford. David Blatt put his hopes in the veteran Vassilis Spanoulis, but the Olympiakos icon didn’t help so much the team, with 3 turnovers committed in the first half followed by easy points for PAO.

The most surprising player in the first half was Janis Timma with his 4 shots made from the arc, building up the lead for Olympiacos at the break time (41-48).

The 3rd quarter started very bad for Olympiacos and at the end of it, PAO manages to turn the tables and took the lead by the hands of Lekavicius (67-62). David Blatt sent William Goss to replace Spanoulis, but that move didn’t have the effect the Israeli coach wanted (William Goss scored just 0 points in 20 minutes of play). In the 4th quarter Panathinaikos continued to play better than their opponents, and with 5 players in double digits (Calathes, Lojeski, Gist, Antetokounmpo, Lekavicius) outscored Olympiakos by 93-80.

Despite the fact that Olympiakos gave the best scorer of the battle (Printezis, 26 points), this was not enough for them to secure the win.