FC Barcelona 74-68 Panathinaikos: Holding on for the win

Another win at the Palau, this time against Panathinaikos in a game that the Catalans look to have under control, but the Greeks' late charge sparked a dramatic finale. But Barça managed to fend off the attack, and picked up a win in which the top scorer was Vesely with 15 pts

Laprovittola and Mirotic were smashing in the threes as Barça stormed off the blocks to lead 14-4, while the Satoransky slam-dunk was one of the highlights of the night. 28-12 up, Panathinaikos looked shell-shocked.

The Barça scoring dried up in the second, but there wasn't much from the visitors either and when Vesely delivered a beauty, and Barça were +17, nobody suspected the tight finish we'd eventually have

But following a Vesely alley-hoop, Panathinaikos strung together a 9-2 streak. They were still in with a sniff, and not even another astonishing alley-hoop, this time from Nnaji, was going to intimidate them. Somehow or other they got the difference down to just five. The buzzer came as a tremendous relief to the blaugrana and they ended up taking the game 74-68.

Next up is a Sunday league fixture against Unicaja at 8pm CET at the Palau Blaugrana.

MATCH STATS

Barça: Satoransky (13), Laprovittola (9), Kalinic (10), Mirotic (14), Vesely (15), Da Silva (5), Higgins (3), Tobey (-), Kuric (-), Jokubaitis (3), Nnaji (2)

Panathinaikos: Wolters (4), Williams (5), Kalaitzakis (-), Bacon (19), Gudaitis (10),  Kalaitzakis (2), Lee (3), Papagiannis (13), Ponitka (9), Mantzoukas (3).

Period: 28-12, 15-18 // 19-21, 12-17