The best-of-five Euroleague playoffs tipped off on Tuesday with an emphatic Olympiakos dismissing Monaco at home and a die-hard Panathinaikos snatching home advantage from Valencia with a road win by the narrowest of margins.
Olympiakos thrashed Monaco 91-70 in Piraeus and vindicated forecasts for a possible sweep against its depleted opponent.
Monaco challenged Olympiakos for the first 19 minutes at the Peace and Friendship Stadium, leading on several occasions, but 10 unanswered points in the last couple of minutes of the first half tipped the balance in the hosts’ favor.
The depth of the Olympiakos bench made the difference, as coach Giorgos Bartzokas had plenty more options and saw players such as Evan Fournier, Cory Joseph and Alec Peters undo the visitors’ defense.
Sasha Vezenkov, recently crowned the regular season’s MVP, made 20 points, followed by Fournier, Joseph, and Nikola Milutinov with 13 each.
Panathinaikos faced regular-season runner-up Valencia at the Roig Arena in Spain without its injured captain, Kostas Sloukas, who will miss the entire series, but still managed to win 68-67.
The Greens slowed Valencia down, containing it to just 32 points in the first half to lead by seven (39-32), as their defense forced the Spaniards to adapt their game to five-on-five plays for the first 26-27 minutes. Yet as the game went into the final quarter, the visitors’ shooting rate dropped and their early supremacy in rebounds receded.
Valencia went level (63-63 and then 67-67), but Kendrick Nunn earned two free throws with two seconds left on the clock and made the latter to win the game for the Greens.
Nunn scored a total of 21 points, but it was the last one of them that mattered most. Matthias Lessort and TJ Shorts made 12 apiece.
Games 2 in both series will take place on Thursday at the same courts.