[Intime]
Olympiakos remained at the top of the Euroleague table via a hard-fought home win against Anadolu Efes, while Panathinaikos produced a poor performance at Milan to suffer a bad loss.
The Reds scored their 17th victory in 24 games, beating their Turkish visitors 92-89 in Piraeus on Friday.
The Piraeus giant appeared to stroll to victory when it advanced by 18 (81-63) with seven minutes left, but Efes made the most of the Reds’ complacency and came back to get within three points (90-87) with a few seconds on the clock, before Olympiakos held on to its slender lead and won.
The usual suspects, i.e. Sasha Vezenkov (26) and Evan Fournier (20) were Olympiakos’ top scorers.
Panathinaikos had a night to forget in Italy on Thursday, going down 87-75 to a quite depleted Armani Milan.
The Greens matched their host for most of the first half, that ended 39-37 in Armani’s favor, but collapsed in the third quarter (partial 27-13), being completely empty under the basket, while their overall defense was problematic once again.
Kostas Sloukas was the Greens’ top player on the night, with 22 points and six assists, while Kendrick Nunn made 18 (with 7 from 18 field goals).
Panathinaikos has now dropped to fifth with a 14-10 record.