[Intime]
Greens and Reds travelled well over Christmas and returned to Greece with precious road wins in Germany and Italy respectively, for a happy end to their year in the Euroleague.
Olympiakos edged out Armani Milano by the smallest of margins, 84-83, on Thursday and improved its record further to 12-6 and go joint top of the table along with Monaco.
After a very close game that had the Italians mostly lead in the first half and the Greeks in the second, it all boiled down to the last shot by the hosts that Armani practically failed to take due to an excellent defensive effort by Olympiakos.
Once again Sasha Vezenkov and Evan Fournier paced the Reds, with 21 and 18 points respectively.
A devastating sequence of three-pointers by Panathinaikos changed the course of the game in the final quarter at Munich on Friday and allowed the European champion to beat host Bayern 80-69.
Bayern was four up at half-time (36-32) and fought tooth and nail with the Greeks up to the 36th minute, when a crescendo of triples turned the 67-66 score in the host’s favor to a 78-67 lead for the Greens.
Kendrick Nunn made 27 points and Dinos Mitoglou added 15 points in this first loss at home for the German team this season. On his debut Wenyen Gabriel scored six points, made five blocks and collected eight rebounds in almost 30 minutes, as the replacement of injured Mathias Lessort.
This was the 11th win for Panathinaikos in 18 games.