“Panathinaikos” with Marios Grigonis goes to the final four of the EuroLeague – defeated “Maccabi” at home

The Greeks reached the final four after a 12-year break.

“We are the main candidates to win the EuroLeague,” the coach of the Athens team, the Turkish Ergin Ataman, shouted immediately after the match, confident as always.

The match started with the visitors dictating: they led 5:2, and at the halfway point of the quarter, 9:4. Although the Greeks tried to take the initiative, Maccabi kept the reins of the game in their hands – 13:8.

The visitors were ahead 20:14 in the last minute of the half, and finally won it only 21:19.

At the beginning of the second half, the teams played evenly 24:24, but the representatives of Athens made a mistake and “Maccabi” ran away again 28:24.

But in the end the game evened out and the teams went hand in hand, and the score was 41:41 at the break.

In the third quarter, Maccabi took the lead again, 46:43, but it was naive to expect that the Greeks would give the victory to the Israeli basketball players. Halfway through the quarter, the score was tied again at 49:49.

At the end of the half, “Panathinaikos” had a small lead – 58:56, which they kept before the decisive half.

At the start of the fourth quarter, Maccabi created complete chaos for themselves and trailed 56-67 as the home team went on a 9-2 run.

Although the Israelis tried to do something, with 4 minutes left. they trailed 64-71. In the penultimate minute, the hosts were ahead 78-69 and calmly won the match and the series.

“Panathinaikos”: Kendrick Nunn 26 (2/7 doubles, 6/10 triples, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, 27 nb), Kostas Sloukas 15 (4/4 doubles, 2/6 triples ., 6 rebounds), Juancho Hernangomez 11, Ioannis Papapetrou 10 (2/5 triples), Mathias Lessortas 9 (3/8 doubles, 11 rebounds).

In this series, both teams won back-to-back: in the first match, the Greeks defeated their opponents 95:88, then Maccabi won 85:83, after that the representatives of Athens took the lead again with a 95:79 victory, and in the fourth match, the Tel Aviv basketball players were stronger. 91:87.

The same confrontation took place in the 2012 season, when “Panathinaikos” and “Maccabi” played in the fifth match of the series – although the Israeli team overcame a 12-point deficit in the fourth quarter and equalized the result 85:85, Dimitris Diamantidis scored the decisive points with penalties and helped Athens to defeat the representatives and advance to the finals.

The Athens team will face the winner of the pair of Fenerbahce Istanbul and Monaco in Berlin on May 24-26 in the final four. There, the series is also 2:2.

A place in the semi-finals was earlier secured by Real Madrid, who won the series 3-0 against fellow Spanish team Vitoria Baskonia with Tad Sedekerski.