Plagued by injuries ALBA won against the worst PAO of the century
Where to start? With the fact that Alba Berlin was coming to Athens to face Panathinaikos having half of their roster missing the game with injuries? Peyton Siva, Stefan Peno, Marcus Eriksson and Tyler Cavanaugh are sidelined for the German team which anyway has a poor, average squad. I am really convinced that in the absence of these 4 players, Alba Berlin won’t win even Fiba Europe Cup! The roster is very young and it’s a low-cost one, but brave, I have to admit it! The coach Aito Garcia Reneses gave them credit and they are fighting for every possession till the last seconds. The “and one” basket that sealed the victory yesterday night proved exactly the way they play: till the end!
On the other side, we have the disastrous management of Panathinaikos reflected in many ways also in this game:
- Nick Calathes committed 9 turnovers and made 10 assists. The blind fans of PAO will see only the good part of his game, but if you follow pure logic you cannot see that for each assist he made as well a turnover. He is not the great player that PAO is pretending to be. He can come only from the bench, but not to play like yesterday, 42 minutes of chaotic basketball.
- PAO had the possibility to win many times against ALBA. At the end of the regular period and in each overtime they had the first chance, having the ball and missing every time the last shot. Because the coach Pedoulakis is at the same weak level with his overrated players. PAO had no offensive idea for the clutch moments of the battle! They ended up with ridiculous plays, wasting the ball!
- Some of PAO players are not showing their value. Or is this their value??? Tyrese Rice, Wesley Johnson, Giorgios Papagiannis, Konstantinos Mitoglou and Rion Brown played together only 34 minutes in a double-overtime encounter, finishing with only 4 points scored and 2 on efficiency! Is this the brilliant acquisition campaign of Panathinaikos? To bring in players that won’t do anything against the Eurocup level squad of Alba Berlin?
Huge night for Ioannis Papapetrou, Jacob Wiley, DeShaun Thomas and Nikos Pappas but a team needs more than 4 brilliant scorers in order to win. I am glad anyway that Calathes didn’t shoot from the 3 point line in this game! I hope he finally understood that his percentage from the arc is similar to Shaquille O’Neal’s one!
Photo: Euroleague.net
Gratian Cormos
