Panathinaikos lost 83-82 at Euroleague holders Barcelona
after coming mighty close to breaking the Catalans’ home advantage. Barca now lead 1-0.The two sides were never far apart with Barcelona edging ahead at half-time (37-35) and Panathinaikos taking the upper hand in the third period (60-57).
The individual quality of the hosts, the repeated errors by Panathinaikos players in the fourth period and some controversial referee calls allowed Barcelona to lead 82-77 nine seconds from time.
That was when Dimitris Diamantidis took it upon himself to give back some hope to Panathinaikos. He scored an unlikely three-pointer, two free throws and even had a shot at the very last second that would have given the Greeks victory had it gone in.
“We narrowly lost the game after a shot that I missed in the end,” said Diamantidis, the game’s top scorer with 26 points.
“Of course we are disappointed, but we have to show our character, work on our psychology and win the next game on Thursday. There is no doubt we can eliminate Barcelona,” he added, referring to Game 2 of the series that is also in the Spanish city on March 24.
“The next match will certainly be difficult, we need to get over losing this one so that we can win the next,” concluded the Panathinaikos skipper.
Assistant coach Dimitris Itoudis added: “We surprised Barcelona in the strategic aspect, especially in defence as we were very well-prepared. This is a long series of games and we’ll see how we can improve.”
Thursday will see the same ties for Game 2 of the Euroleague play-off series, with Olympiakos hosting Siena and Barcelona entertaining Panathinaikos.
source: SPORTINGREECE
