[InTime Sports]
The penultimate round of the Euroleague regular season saw Olympiakos all but secure the top spot with a road win against Hapoel Tel Aviv, and Panathinaikos bid farewell to its chances for home advantage at the playoffs after its loss at Valencia on Thursday.
The Reds played a composed game at Sofia and beat host Hapoel 89-85 to extend their excellent record to 25-12. They have definitely clinched one of the top two spots and will likely finish first.
On Thursday they responded to Hapoel’s early lead (up to nine points) and dominated the second half keeping at bay the high-scoring team of Greek coach Dimitris Itoudis.
Two days after scoring 37 points against Real Madrid, Tyler Dorsey was once again impressive notching up 23 points at Sofia, followed by Cory Joseph and Sasha Vezenkov with 10 each.
Meanwhile, Panathinaikos reverted to its poor performances on the road after the Barcelona blip on Tuesday, going down 102-84 at Valencia. The Greens are now seventh, with 21 wins in 37 games. They still have a chance for a top-six finish, otherwise they will have to negotiate a play-in game.
In Spain they played catch-up for the entire game as their defense was too disorganized to stop the prolific hosts. Just as the Greeks reduced their deficit, the Spanish team regained its distance, to add insult to injury in the end with its three-digit scoring. However that does not mean it is so strong it would even beat the Lakers, as Panathinaikos coach Ergin Ataman claimed after the game.
Nigel Hayes-Davis made 19 points and Cedi Osman 16 for Panathinaikos.