Panathinaikos will have a mountain to climb as
they must eliminate favourites Barcelona if they are to reach the Final-Four of this season's Euroleague, after finishing second in their pool at the Top-16 on Thursday. The Greens defeated Unicaja Malaga 77-61 in Spain, but had to settle for second in their group as another Spanish side, Caja Laboral, managed to beat Lietuvos Rytas at Vilnius on the same evening to top the pool on a better head-to-head record with the Greek champions.Panathinaikos had to beat Malaga away in order to ensure they reached the Euroleague playoffs and were completely dominant on Thursday as they were playing what their coach, Zeljko Obradovic dubbed a "final".
The Greeks had Drew Nicholas and Dimitris Diamantidis on a great evening, as they scored 18 and 15 points respectively, although the most impressive contribution came from substitute Nick Calathes in defence.
Caja Laboral's victory at Lietuvos Rytas with a 77-68 score took them to 10 points out of six games, the same as Panathinaikos.
The Greens will now have to face the hosts of the Final-Four, Barcelona in the quarterfinals, that is a best-of-five playoff series, with the Catalans enjoying home advantage.
The series starts on March 22 in Spain.
On the same date the series between Olympiakos and Siena begins in Piraeus.
The Greek league leaders had already clinched the top spot in their pool before their home match against Zalgiris Kaunas, which the Reds won 78-64 in front of some 6,000 fans on Thursday.
The hosts had an impressive Rasho Netserovic as their top scorer on the night as he scored 20 points.
Zouros confirmed
On Friday the Hellenic Basketball Federation (EOK) confirmed the hiring of Zalgiris coach Ilias Zouros.
"The Greek coach has taken the reins of all Greek's favourite [team] ahead of the Eurobasket of Lithuania next summer and the 2012 Olympic Games in London," the EOK statement read.
source: sportingreece
