A hard-fought victory for Barça at the Oaka against Panathinaikos, based on brilliant defence and an excellent second half, even though the finish ended up being a lot tighter than might have seemed at some stages. The Catalans were missing Hayes-Davis, who tested positive for Covid-19.
Laprovittola was the star of Barça’s strong start with 11 points in just seven minutes, but the Greeks had managed to square things up at 26-26 by the end of the first.
And then Panathinaikos stormed off into a 13 point lead and Barça were still well behind at the break, 49-41.
Intense defence after the break kept the home side down to just 15 points in the third and from trailing heavily, the blaugrana now had a double figure lead.
And they held onto that advantage nicely, going into the final minute with nine points between them and Panathinaikos. The game looked over and although the home side very quickly managed to narrow the gap, there wasn’t enough time for them to mount a comeback.
MATCH STATS
Panathinaikos: Macon (4), White (9), Papapetrou (16), Sant-Ross (13), Papagiannis (11), Perry (3), Kaselakis (-), Nedovic (18), Evans (8) & Mantzoukas (-).
Barça: Laprovittola (18), Exum (4), Mirotic (20), Sanli (5), Oriola (-), Davies (12), Smits (8), Kuric (9), Jokubaitis (9) & Caicedo (-).
Periods: 26-26 / 23-15 / 15-27 / 18-17
Referees: Borys Ryzhyk, Fernando Rocha & Tomislav Hordov.
